Shotgun Friendship
by 9Tiptoes
Summary: Bobby & John Origin Story: Two hunters thrown together by happenstance, they will not only become close friends and confidants, they are both also destined to play an important role in shaping the lives of the two young men who will save the world. If only they can manage not to shoot each other first... Written for SPN-J2 Big Bang 2013
1. Part One

September 2001

Life had a way of repeating itself. This was a fact that could be proven by two completely unrelated events that seemed fated to reprise themselves once every twelve to fifteen years. The first was the horrifying yet seemingly harmless reappearance of bell bottom jeans into fashion. The second and significantly more dangerous was the slide and click of Bobby Singer's shotgun as he loaded a round into its chamber, then raised and directed the barrel at the chest of John Winchester.

"You've got exactly five seconds to get your ass out of my house before I pump you so goddamn full of buckshot…"

Oh yes. They'd been there, done that once before; life set on permanent repeat. Of course this time, with no doe-eyed youngsters to stand in his way, Bobby had every intention of carrying out the threat.

May 1989

The storm that had been stirred up by the warmer than average day, was still raging late into the night. Its wind whipped the trees that surrounded the property and rattled all the sheet metal lying loose around the salvage yard, until the sounds bled together and it was impossible to tell the difference between the metal and the thunder. Bobby, however, wasn't listening.

Tucked away in the library, all the noise from outside was muted by the endless stacks of books that littered his home and Bobby was planted right in the middle of them all. Sucking down coffee and munching on a bowl of pan popped corn, he poured through the books, searching for the answer he knew was just a page turn away. His hunting partner was about two days out and hot on the trail of the latest monster of the week and expecting results in the research department.

Rufus had stopped to gas up and call him collect from a truck stop payphone on the far end of Maine. He'd griped about how mobile monsters had become and whatever happened to the slow moving zombies they use to take out with pot-shots from the back of Bobby's truck, and why was it that he got strip searched each and every time he crossed the US Canadian border. Bobby had only shaken his head and made some disparaging remark about 'giving probable cause' before hanging up.

When three hours and eight books later Bobby was no closer to finding what he was looking for, he made a vow to take a week off and really get his books in some sort of order. Of course at the pace he was going, he might as well pencil in that vacation sometime in the year 2006. He slapped the book in his hand closed and tossed it onto the discard pile.

As Bobby was reaching behind his back for the next volume, he caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eye as it reflected across the far wall. Bobby frowned and pulled himself up off the floor. He stepped over a stack of books, pressed a knee into the sofa and peered through the split in the drapes. A long, dark car had pulled into his drive and made its way up to the front walk. Bobby watched its driver climb out into the rain.

"The Hell?"

Growling, Bobby pushed off the couch, snatched the nearest weapon and stomped towards the door. In one fluid motion, he shouldered the gun, pulled and pushed the fore-end, dropping the cartridge into place and flung the door open.

The dark haired man who stood before him startled back a step in surprise, dropping the hand that was meant to knock on the front door. He was tall and young – not a day over 35 if Bobby had to guess – and soaking wet from his run from the car to the house with his field jacket pulled tight around his broad shoulders, high up around his neck to keep the cold summer rain out.

Bobby didn't give him a chance to do or say anything; he just raised the shot gun higher, leveling it at the stranger's chest.

"I don't know who the Hell you are, mister," Bobby rasped menacingly, "but I'm giving you fair warning. You got exactly five seconds to get off my porch, 'fore I blast your ass full of buck shot."

There was an almost imperceptible movement – a tug of the man's jacket – that had Bobby's finger twitching over the trigger.

"Daddy?" The sound was nothing more than a whimper and was nearly drowned out by the noise of the storm, but it still reached Bobby's ears. His eyes narrowed even as the other man's eyes widened and his breath hitched in his chest.

"What the –"

"S'okay, son," the stranger said softly, reaching a hand around each side of himself, tucking not one, but two young boys into his back, protectively. "You're Robert Singer?" he directed at Bobby, "Look, I know this is outta left –"

"You brought your damn kids out in this piss?" Bobby growled. "In the middle of the night? What kinda fool –"

"I didn't have a choice," the man interrupted. "Listen, a mutual friend gave me your name."

"Can't be. I ain't got none."

"Bill Harvelle."

Even as Bobby groaned in response, he knew what the man was saying sounded completely plausible. Bill Harvelle was a family man himself; a wife and a young child; a girl if Bobby remembered right. He wasn't shy and didn't know a stranger; talking to any damn fool who felt the need to gab. Hell, that was half the reason he and his pretty little wife had opened up the bar - Harvelle's Roadhouse - because he liked to talk and people liked to talk back at him. The fact that he was a decent and reliable hunter to boot, was just icing on the cake and it had taken no time for his roadside establishment to fill up with the same. Bill prided himself on being able to help his hunter patrons whenever possible, so it should be no surprise that he would send one in Bobby's direction if that's what the situation called for. It didn't mean Bobby had to be thrilled about it.

"Bill said you were the man to talk to about a little problem I ran into," the stranger said, continuing as if Bobby hadn't just zoned him out completely. "Said you'd know where I could lay my hands on some 'provisions'. I'm not asking for a handout," the man clarified, "I've got money."

"Alright, just…shut up a minute and let me think on this."

There was a significant pause in which Bobby lowered the shotgun and ran a hand up and over his mustached lip, scratching at his bare jaw; thinking hard. All the while the stranger stood quiet and expectant on the cold, wet porch, waiting for the decision.

"Bill sent you?" Bobby finally asked, as if he hadn't already heard the answer to that.

"Yessir."

"Don't call me sir. I ain't your CO and there ain't enough years between us for me to warrant a 'sir'. Just…come in, get yer kids out of the rain 'fore y'all catch yourselves a death of cold."

"Thank you," the man said with a nod, ushering the boys in. The littlest one, who couldn't be much more than five and in a set of well-worn Star Wars pajamas was swept up into the arms of his father and carried across the threshold, into the house.

Bobby closed the door behind them, setting the latch and doing a quick check of the salt line before he pushed past the small family and led them down the short hallway to the library.

"Dean, take your brother," the man said, handing the smaller boy off, "and go sit down."

"Yessir," was the older boy's quiet but clear reply. Bobby watched as the boy set his brother down—he was much too old to be carried anyway— and then took his hand, pulling him towards the couch. They climbed up and sat on the end that was cleaned off, and when the younger boy curled up on his side and pillowed his head on his big brother's chest, the older boy didn't seem to mind one bit.

Once the boys were settled, the men looked to each other, the stranger tilting his head towards the darkened kitchen. Bobby flipped the switch that set the florescent lights humming and crossed the room to the coffee pot.

"Coffee?" he asked, lifting the pot and an empty coffee cup.

"Sure, black."

Bobby nodded and while the man was distracted with removing his coat, Bobby slipped a silver flask out of his shirt pocket and poured its clear contents into the bottom of a coffee cup. He topped the liquid off with coffee and offered the mug to the stranger.

"I didn't catch your name." From behind his own mug, Bobby watched as the man took a tentative sip from the proffered cup.

"Name's Winchester. John Winchester," he answered after finding the coffee to his liking and taking down several long drinks.

When there was no apparent reaction to the Holy Water-dosed coffee, Bobby breathed an unnoticed sigh of relief and set his mug aside. He motioned toward the desk and together they took a seat opposite each other.

"Winchester, huh?" Bobby rolled the name over his tongue, but other than the brand, it didn't ring any bells. "Don't think I've ever heard of you."

"Try to keep to myself; stay under the radar." John said with a deep yawn. He rubbed a hand roughly over his jaw and then up and back through his dark hair, making it stand up in odd angles and giving him a more youthful appearance. It was entirely possible, Bobby thought looking at him, for John to climb up on the couch with his boys and blend in as one of them, even though in reality, he couldn't have been but five years younger than Bobby, himself.

"But you've found your way to the Roadhouse," Bobby noted, "so you ain't under the radar no more. And Bill sent you here, so…what is it you're looking for, John?"

"Like I said…provisions."

"You mind being a bit more specific?"

"Consecrated iron rounds."

"That's specific enough, I suppose." Bobby frowned, studying the young man warily, "What _exactly_ are you chasin' after?"

When instead of answering, John sized him up through narrowed eyes and shook his head. Bobby huffed an exhausted sigh.

"Well," he continued, "I can see we're not the caring and sharing type. I can get you what you need, I suppose."

"Good. Thank you."

"But it's not gonna be tonight. It's late and I'm bushed."

"Oh. Okay, well…" Nodding, John pushed himself up and away from the table and Bobby was quick to follow suit.

"You'll just have to bunk down here for the night," Bobby explained, not giving the hunter a chance to back out. "A good night's sleep and you can get a fresh start in the A.M."

"What?" Shaking his head adamantly, John argued, "No, I'm not –"

"Look, I get it. You don't know me. I don't know you. And personally…I'm not one for trustin' people I don't know, but this is just common sense. It's three o'clock in the morning, and it's stormin' something fierce. There's an extra bed upstairs, big enough to fit the three of ya and there ain't anywhere in this county as safe as right here, and I oughta know. It makes no sense for you to take those _babies_," he tilted his head towards the boys curled up, asleep on the couch, "back out into that monsoon to some seedy motel in town when I've got more than enough room."

"That's…generous of you, but –"

"I don't do generous. I just don't want it on my conscience if something bad happens to ya, that's all. The bedroom is upstairs, first on the right. Take it or…jus-just take it."

John nodded again after a moment's consideration and then moved into the library to collect his kids, hefting the little one into his arms and directing the sleepy older boy up the stairs.

Bobby waited for them to round the corner, then set about double checking the doors and lines, before turning in himself. But it had been such a long time since there'd been anyone in the house, that sleep was evasive. Bobby lay awake, listening to his home as it breathed with new life. He lay awake wondering what had possessed him to not only invite this unknown man – this hunter – into his house, but also to allow him and his children to stay.

It had been true what he'd said about it being safe here. But he didn't know this man from Adam; didn't owe him a thing and the last thing Bobby needed was the lives of three more people put into his hands. Morning would come quickly, Bobby assured himself. Morning would come and he'd get John what he needed and then send him and his little boys off on their merry way and never have to hear from them again; never have to worry whether he had done the right thing.

"Balls," Bobby groaned. He flipped over onto his stomach and buried his face into his pillow, willing sleep to carry him and this entire messed up situation away and after a few minutes, it did.

-O-o-o-O-

_Sammy, stop. What are you doin'?_

_Just lookin', Dean. See? He's not so scary when he's sleepin'._

_Get outta there 'fore Dad catches you. He'll tan your butt 'n you'll deserve it. Come on, Sammy. Now!_

Bobby shifted on the edge of sleep, subconsciously adjusting to better hear the little whispers that had filled his room and the soft patter of bare feet on the hardwood floors around his bed, but when Bobby raised his head, the room was dark and empty save him. He lifted himself up on his elbows, glanced around the room, frowning in confusion, certain that he'd just heard voices. When he was convinced that he was alone, he dropped back down on to his pillow and fell quickly back to sleep.

An hour later, the sun filtered in through his curtains, splashing cool tendrils of light along the length of the planked oak floors, up the pale green chenille of the bed covers and finally onto Bobby's face where it danced among the auburn bristles of the man's unshaven jaw.

As if he could sense the movement of the sun there – feel the tickle on his skin – Bobby reached up and ran a hand over his rough jaw, the dusting of hair scraping roughly against his palm.

He breathed the deep, cleansing breath of first morn and his eyes snapped open.

"Bacon?"

-O-o-o-O-

Having heard footsteps on the stairs, John turned from the stove and to his children, who were sitting quietly at the table.

"You boys be polite and respectful now. We are guests in this man's house, so no acting up or being mouthy. Understood?"

"Yessir," Dean replied matter-of-factly; his younger brother immediately mimicking his response with a happy smile.

"Knew I could count on you boys," John said, placing a hand on each of their heads and ruffling their hair affectionately. He turned back to the stove, turned the heat down beneath the iron skillet and was cracking a couple eggs into the still hot bacon grease when their host entered the kitchen.

"Sorry," John said over his shoulder at the man. "Don't mean to take over your place, but these boys won't wait 'til midday to be fed. I'll pay you, of course, whatever the cost."

"Don't worry about it," Singer replied with a yawn, "I'm just a little surprised I actually have eggs, is all."

The snapping of the eggs in the grease drew John back to his cooking, but he watched the other man out of the corner of his eye, and tried to gauge his reaction to the home invasion. Singer stood in the entry of his own kitchen shuffling his feet, looking as though this was his first time ever being in the place and glancing warily at the boys.

His kids – much to John's delight – stayed perfectly quiet; sitting at the table next to one another. John didn't have to look to know that both of them would be watching their host with endless – albeit polite – curiosity.

"Coffee, Mr. Singer?" John took a cup down out of the cupboard and filled it with the steaming hot brew, offering it to the other man.

Their host frowned, but accepted the cup. "First Sir and now Mister? Kid, you're making me feel old. Just call me Bobby for crying out loud."

He stepped further into the kitchen and sat down at his kitchen table. "You're not gonna call me Mister too, are you?" he asked, causing the boys to grow wide-eyed and uneasy.

"Nosir," Dean answered immediately, shaking his head adamantly; his little brother once again mimicking Dean's words.

John grinned and turned back to the stove. He rummaged around until he found the plates, pulling a few down and began dishing them up; an egg, fried hard and bacon for each boy, three eggs over and bacon for him and Bobby. Then he scooped up all of the plates and returned to the table where Dean, having made his own introductions, was now chatting up their host; regaling him with their adventures across the tri-states in the last week and how they'd stopped in a little town so he and Sammy could run the bases of a ball diamond in an Iowa cornfield.

With his eyebrows riding high on his forehead, John took a seat next Bobby and watched his son in wonder and disbelief. Dean wasn't exactly one to strike up a friendship on the spot. Sammy, maybe. His youngest had never met a stranger, but Dean? Dean was reserved and untrusting around strangers. Mouth closed, eyes and ears open, forever on the lookout, Dean was the one John depended on to look after his little brother; to do what he was told and keep them all –John included – in line and out of trouble.

At 10, Dean was the unwitting partner in John's quest for revenge and justice. In the five-and-a-half-years John had been hunting, it had been Dean who had been witness to it all. The little boy had seen his father's successes and his tragic failures. He'd seen the effect that this 'new life' without his mother had had on his father. He'd seen the gut-wrenching depression and, God help him, he'd seen his father's ongoing battle with alcoholism. But what could such a young child really understand of all that? The only thing Dean could truly comprehend was how to take care of his family. It wasn't just 'Look out for Sammy'; it was 'Look out for me too. Don't let me fall, Dean.' It was an enormous weight to put on such little shoulders – John was well aware – cruel even, but Dean took to it like a duck to water. Without Dean, John would have most assuredly fallen and the boys would have been stripped away from him. And John was all too aware that it might still happen. Maybe they didn't live the best life. Maybe what he was putting his kids through even bordered on neglect from time to time, but for John, it was necessary. Everything he did was necessary. It all had a purpose; to avenge his wife's death, to make sure the tragedy that had befallen his small family didn't happen to anyone else, to kill every last one of those evil sons-a-bitches and leave them a bloody, unrecognizable mess just like they had left his life. But most importantly, he had to make sure that his boys would never be vulnerable in the face of evil, even if that meant exposing them to life's harsh realities, long before they were ready. Yeah, John knew it was necessary, he just wished he didn't feel so damn guilty about it.

"Can we, Dad?"

"What?" John shook himself out of his headspace and realized that he'd missed a big chunk of the conversation. Both boys were looking at him expectantly; Sammy up on his knees in the chair, bouncing with excitement.

"Please, Daddy?" the youngest pleaded.

Putty. That's what he was. Looking into those soft hazel eyes, John Winchester knew that he could never truly deny his children anything. Maybe it was time that changed.

-O-o-o-O-

John leaned over the couch, pushed the curtains aside and peered out the window. Somewhere out in the salvage yard, he could hear his two boys, whooping and hollering as they played Cops and Robbers. Sammy of course would choose to be the good guy, and his older brother would let him, because that's what older brothers did. Dean would get stuck being the bad guy, again. But it wasn't a secret to John that Dean didn't mind at all being the bad guy. At ten-years-old, the kid already had that bad boy persona down pat. Heaven save all the teenage girls that crossed his path in a few years.

"Here ya go." Bobby entered the room that he referred to as his library and set a steel ammo box down onto the desk. John joined him and stared down at the ordinary-looking iron rounds, losing himself in thought. He was exhausted; physically and emotionally, having just spent the past four days driving across three states in pursuit of the thing that had tried to take his little boy – his Sammy – away from him.

The hunt had been just like any other hunt. John had done his homework; figured out what it was he was hunting; what could kill it; had even tracked down the family who he believed the creature had been targeting. Everything had been going according to plan, yet still, something hadn't felt right. Having listened to his instinct, John had returned to the motel room, and thank God he had. The Shtriga that he'd been tracking for the better part of week had done the unexpected. It had doubled back and attacked John's own family where they'd slept. It had been too close of a call, and John was reeling from how vulnerable his family really was; even _after_ everything he'd done to protect them.

"Somethin' on your mind?" Bobby's question broke through the whirlwind of his mind, and John physically shivered, shaking himself back into the now.

"Just uh…" John's voice dropped off and he glanced back towards the window. He ran a hand up the backside of his neck, scratching idly into the hair at the nape of his neck that desperately needed to be cut. There was overwhelming urge in him to blurt out personal information, but he reined it back in with a tired sigh and said, "Question. This thing, this Shtriga that I'm hunting…I used iron rounds before, so how do I know these consecrated rounds are gonna work?"

"You don't." Bobby turned to his fireplace and with the touch of his hand, opened a secret compartment. He pulled out a dusty, leather-bound journal; its spine cracking when he opened it up on the desk and spun it around to face John. "You wanna make sure this thing is good-n-dead, you gotta shoot it with consecrated iron _while_ it's feeding."

"While it's feeding?" John couldn't hide the look of shock and disbelief that swept over his face.

"Only tried and true method I know," Bobby answered solemnly.

When John stepped backward – away from the awful truth – the backs of his knees connected with the sofa and he sat down hard. He folded in; his elbows on his knees the only thing keeping him upright, and spoke quietly. "You know, that thing…it came after my kid. It tried to drain Sammy like it had done all those other kids."

Bobby shook his head and John couldn't tell if it was sympathy in the man's eyes or something else.

"So what? I was just supposed to let it continue to feed on him so I could get a good shot?"

"Of course not," Bobby answered, barely suppressing the eyeroll, "but that does beg the question…why do you have those boys tangled up in this mess in the first place?"

John sat back, stiffening defensively, but Bobby didn't hesitate long enough for John to react.

"John, I know you don't know me from Adam, but I've gotta ask: What are you doin'? You got a family, and a young one at that. Why on God's green Earth are you draggin' those boys through all this crap? Don't you know they're gonna get covered in it? The stench, the blood, the misery; it's a never-ending cycle of death. That's what you're condemning those boys to."

"You're right," John answered brusquely. He felt a spark of anger flare up hot in his belly, but he managed, for the most part, to keep the heat out of his voice when he replied, "You don't know me. You don't know what I've been through, what my situation is, so don't go judging me."

"Your wife died, killed, murdered by some evil sumbitch and you're on a mission to avenge her death. How'd I do? Did I hit it pretty close?"

John faltered, voiceless under the scary accuracy of the other man's words.

"It don't take a genius to string things together: two boys, no mama, you looking haggard like you do. Plus, I recognize the look of desperation and grief. I've felt it myself. All hunters have. It's the same damn reason we all get into hunting: personal tragedy. But that don't excuse what you're doing to those boys."

"What other options, do I have? Huh, Bobby? My Mary... She was amazing; beautiful, you know? And she was the love of my life and they…" he swiped his tongue across dry lips and swallowed thickly, composing himself before going on. "Those evil sonsabitches took her from me, from our boys, and this so-called mission? It's my life now. I mean…I think I'll go crazy if it don't do…something. I can't walk away from it." He scrubbed a hand over his brow, trying to rub away the tension building at the front of his skull. "So you tell me…what am I supposed to do?"

-O-o-o-O-

An hour later, John and his boys were ready to get back on the road. They were heading to Blue Earth, Minnesota and the man the boys affectionately referred to as 'Pastor Jim'. When he'd been brought up, Bobby acknowledged having met Jim Murphy once or twice and said he knew him to be a good, decent man and a 'pretty handy hunter to have in your corner'. But John already knew all this, because John considered the man to be something of a friend. He had also called ahead and made arrangements for his kids to stay with the preacher man while John continued on with his hunt for the Shtriga that had attacked Sammy. Bobby couldn't help but feel relieved by that.

John gave Bobby his sincere thanks for the consecrated iron and for the place to stay, and the boys said their farewells. Sammy swamped the man with one of his trademark hugs, whereas Dean stood tall and offered up his hand. Bobby shook the boy's hand and then tugged him in to a loose hug and clapped him firmly on his back. He ruffled the older boy's hair and instructed him to take good care of his little brother, and to, "Watch out for your old man too."

"Take care of yourself, Singer," John offered back with a smirk. He loaded the boys in the car and they were gone; the Impala kicking up dust in their wake until Singer Salvage disappeared in the cloud.


	2. Part Two

December 1989

What was the saying? Like a bad penny – yeah, that was John Winchester alright. Bobby was laid out on a creeper underneath a '62 Buick when he heard – no felt – the tell-tale rumble of Winchester's Impala as it pulled slowly onto the lot, roaring one last time before the engine was cut.

A moment later, the door to the Singer Salvage garage swung open, letting in a blast of South Dakota winter that not even Bobby's kerosene heater could tamp down.

"Singer, you in here?" John called over the noise of the heater.

"Shut the damned door," Bobby hollered back. "You're letting all the heat out."

The door was closed and from beneath the car, Bobby watched as John Winchester's well-worn combat boots crossed the floor to stand beside the Buick.

"What are you doin' here anyway?" Bobby asked from beneath the salvaged car.

"Can't a guy stop by and say 'hi' to an old friend?"

"You trying to tell me you got friends? That's news to me." Bobby grabbed the frame of the Buick and pushed the creeper out from under the old car where John was standing over him waiting with a hand to pull him up.

"How ya been, Bobby?" John asked, gripping the older man's hand tightly and tugging him to his feet with a quick, almost friendly smack on the shoulder.

"Fine, I guess. How've you been?" The question was more of an accusation, because Bobby had a strong sense that something was off, and Bobby eyed him warily.

"Good!" John answered brightly, deliberately ignoring Bobby's probing look. "Good. I'm real good."

It wasn't as if the unannounced visit was out of character for John. In fact, in the seven months since he'd met John Winchester, the man had made a habit of showing up out of the blue at the oddest hours, oftentimes for no reason other than a brief layover between this hunt and the next; just an hour to let his boys stretch their legs. It wasn't an easy life, being cooped up in a car for hours on end, and even though they were used to it, Sam and Dean were still little boys. They needed time in the open air to run around and really exercise their lungs, and Bobby was happy to oblige them…when he didn't feel like he was about to get Shanghaied into more than he bargained for.

"Alright, Winchester. What'd you do this time?"

Smirking, John held his hands up in surrender. "Nothing. I swear," he said, chuckling. "I'm on my way up into Minnesota for a job and you just happened to be on the way. Like I said, just saying 'hi' to a friend."

Bobby uh-huh'd and directed his 'friend' out of the garage. They stopped at the car, to collect John's boys. While Bobby shook Dean awake, John hoisted Sammy out of the car, and hugged the limp boy to his chest.

"That boy sleeps like a rock," Bobby said, tipping his head in Sam's direction.

"Naw," Dean replied, yawning. The ten-year-old climbed out of the backseat and fumbled sleepily to slide his arms into the straps on his loaded backpack. "He's just pretending to sleep cuz he likes Dad to carry him."

-O-o-o-O-

Bobby poured fresh coffee into two mugs; the piping hot brew splashing over the rim that was chipped and stained from years of use. John was waiting beside him, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest and looking out into the library where his boys were. Seated on the floor, in front of Bobby's sofa, Sam and Dean sat shoulder to shoulder, their legs stretched out in front of them; Sammy's little tennis shoes rocking from side to side with unspent energy. With a book held between them, Dean's index finger followed along the large-print words as he read to his little brother, and every once in a while, he stopped to ask Sammy to 'help' him sound out a word.

"Kid's gonna be whip smart," Bobby said, offering John a cup.

John accepted the coffee with a nod. "He will be if his big brother has anything to say about it. He spends hours in the car reading to Sam. Hell, I've run out of those Little Golden Books; can't find a one that they haven't already read a hundred times. And when they run out of stuff to read, Dean just makes shit up. Little stories about knights and dragons, and every one of them's gotta have a damsel in distress."

Bobby chuckled. "Of course they have. That boy's got an imagina –"

"And they all look just like Mary," John added sadly, cutting Bobby off mid-sentence.

"Oh." Bobby stalled out, the information sinking like a stone in his gut. "John, I uh…"

"It's okay." He blew out a long breath between pursed lips and pushed away from the counter, wandering towards the back door and out onto Bobby's porch with Bobby following close behind. "I guess this way, Sammy'll know who she was whether he realizes it or not. Lord knows I can't talk to him about her."

"Is that what's botherin' you?"

John scoffed and opened his mouth to broach an argument, but Bobby beat him to the punch.

"It's obvious that somethin's up with you. You show up out of the blue, acting overly friendly and all buddy-buddy. It's settin' off warning bells throughout the three adjacent counties."

When John didn't respond, Bobby plowed on. "Look, I ain't gonna pull it outta ya, but if you absolutely gotta talk about it, I guess I can listen."

Without another word said between them, they dusted the snow from the top step and dropped down simultaneously. They let an uneasy silence build between them as they sat looking out over the frozen yard, silently sipping their coffee, but after a long moment of silence, John finally spoke. "He asked about her the other day. He asked Dean about Mary."

"What'd Dean say?"

John considered it for a minute, and then shrugged, saying, "He lied to him. Told Sammy she'd died in a car accident." John's eyes ticked towards Bobby as if he was watching for any signs of judgment on Bobby, but the man's face gave nothing away and he didn't say a word. Instead he just waited for John to continue, and after a breath, John did. "I don't know what made Dean lie to his brother like that, but like you said, Sam's smart. If Dean doesn't tell him the truth, he's gonna figure it out on his own."

"Or you'll tell him."

John looked up then, sharply, looking like an animal that had caught the scent of a predator. He was scared. Bobby was aware that this was a tough subject for John. He'd known since the first time he'd met the man, and he understood to a degree. They did, after all, have similar pasts, just different…circumstances. Bobby didn't have any kids; didn't have to comfort or explain to anyone where Mommy was or why she wasn't coming home, but that didn't mean Bobby couldn't sympathize. What little family Bobby's wife had, had turned away from him after Karen's funeral, which, if he was being truthful, hadn't hurt his feelings none. He didn't want to have to look any of them in the eye after what had _really_ happened. Not that they would ever know the truth.

But, unlike Bobby, the dirty little secret John was carrying would eventually come to light. That was the nature of the beast. Sooner or later his youngest was _going_ to figure out what kept his dad out all night. He was going to ask more questions and he was going to put two and two together and discover what had actually happened to his mother. And John had better learn to face the inevitable future and come up with a plan to deal with it.

"It's gonna happen one of these days, John."

"Yeah, well…one of these days doesn't have to mean tomorrow," John grumbled into his coffee and turning away.

Bobby rolled his eyes and shook his head, just this side of exasperated with the man. If he looked up stubborn in the dictionary, Bobby was quite sure he'd find a picture of John Winchester beside it.

"Fine. You hold onto that denial as long as you can. It's not gonna be pretty when this all comes out in the wash, but who am I to tell you how to live your life? Just remember…that boy's goin' on seven years of age. That's an awful lot of resentment you're buildin' up there. There's gonna be some hard feelings and you're gonna have to live with the consequences."

"Thought you weren't tellin' me how to live my life?" John asked, dryly, but then he flashed a small smile, and Bobby saw the dimples that lay beneath John's day-old beard growth; the same dimples Sam had.

"Whatever," Bobby said, shaking his head. "You know…I'm not fooled by all this heart-to-heart crap. I know you came here for a reason, so, why don't you quit your pussy-footin' an' just tell me what it is you _really _want?"

"Well, there may be one…small thing."

"Oh, so it wasn't to say 'hi' to an old friend?"

"Shut up," John smirked. "I was trying to get on your good side, but I can see now that you don't have one. Grumpy old codger," John added, mumbling under his breath.

"Keep up the sweet talk…see where it gets ya."

Apparently the sweet talk _did_ get John somewhere, because two minutes later, Bobby had agreed to a week-long sleepover with his two favorite rugrats, while John slipped up into Minnesota to work the job he'd found.

-O-o-o-O-

Dean had become surprisingly handy in the shop and was eager to learn from Bobby, and Sam seemed more than content to run around the yard with Bobby's latest junkyard dog puppy named Abrams. Together they trounced through the snow, digging deep holes into the snow Bobby had piled up while plowing the property. And when Dean became bored in the shop, he joined his brother and together they created a network of tunnels and forts in which to play war; launching great snowball battles that lasted well into the late afternoon. They'd come in soaking wet and happily exhausted, with barely enough energy to eat their supper.

It wasn't until Saturday, just two days before Christmas, that either of the boys thought to inquire about their father. Bobby had just poured a bag of macaroni noodles into a large saucepan when he felt a rush of cold air sweep through the room, followed by the tell-tale swoosh swoosh swoosh sound of snow pants as six-year-old Sam tore through the house. He set the pan on the burner and turned the heat up to boil just in time to turn and catch the boy around the waist as he rounded the corner and slid across the linoleum.

"Where are you goin' in such an all-fire hurry?"

"Bathroom! I gotta go!" Sam pleaded.

"Sit," Bobby commanded, pushing the boy to the floor and up-ending him so that Sam's socked feet stuck up into the air. He grabbed hold of each pant leg and gave one swift tug, pulling off not only Sam's snow pants, but also his too-large hand-me-down blue jeans. Sam shrieked and giggled and jumped up, peeling out of the room; his skinny, bare legs a blur as he ran for the upstairs bathroom.

A few minutes later, Sam returned.

"Can I have my pants back?"

Bobby turned around and upon seeing the youngest Winchester, burst into a wide grin. Sam stood awkwardly in the open doorway, flushed pink from the cold; the neckline on his three sizes too big t-shirt hung loosely, falling off of one shoulder completely, while he tugged at the hem in embarrassment.

"Shirt's a little big on you, doncha think?" Handing Sam his blue jeans, Bobby glanced down at the boy's socked feet, where the fabric of what should have been crew socks was stretched beyond its elasticity and bunched around his ankles. "All your clothes are. Haven't you got anything of your own that you didn't inherit from your brother?"

Sam shrugged deeply. "None of my old clothes fit anymore. Dad says I grow like a weed. " He tugged his jeans up over his hips without even bothering to unbutton them. "S'okay Uncle Bobby. If I do this," Sam stuffed his shirt down into his waistband, "they don't fall down so much. See?" He held up his hands in triumph and to Bobby's surprise, the pants held, if just barely.

"Yeah. I see, Sport. Remind me after dinner and we'll dig ya up a belt. I'm sure I've got something that'll work."

Sam's face split into a happy smile, his eyes growing wide with anticipation. "Dinner?"

"Yep. Why don't you go hang up your snow pants in the front hall and then you can help me fix the macaroni."

"Okay!"

Sam snatched up the snow-soaked nylon pants and ran from the room, returning almost immediately. Bobby patted the counter top and with his help, Sam hopped up to take a seat.

"You washed your hands upstairs?"

"Yessir," Sam answered immediately.

"Good boy," Bobby said, pulling out a butter knife, a large block of Velveeta and a bowl and setting them on the counter beside Sam. "I've gotta big job for ya, kiddo. Think I can trust you with a knife?"

"Sure."

"It may not look sharp, but it can still cut you if you're goofing around with it."

"I won't, Uncle Bobby. I helped Dean fix supper lots of times."

"Alright then."

They set to work; Sam carefully cutting the cheese into small blocks and Bobby preparing the ground beef to add to the noodles – just how the boys liked. Bobby glanced over once to find Sam sitting quietly, licking the excess cheese from his fingers, lost in thought; a small, worried crinkle nestled in between his eyes.

"That a pretty serious look you're wearing." Sam ducked his head and didn't respond. "You thinkin' about your dad?" Bobby hazarded a guess and received a half-hearted shrug of Sam's slender shoulders in response. "It's alright if you are, Sam. I'd be very surprised if you weren't, it being so close to Christmas and all."

"I don't like his job," Sam muttered quietly. He wiped his spit-slick fingers on his jeans and glanced around the room, looking anywhere but at Bobby. "He's always gone. And Dean is the best big brother ever, but sometimes he won't play with me and…there's nothing to do," Sam frowned, looking guilty. "I hate it when he's gone. I just wish Dad was here."

"He does too, kiddo. Truth be told, he doesn't like his job all that much either." Sam gave him a defiant look of disbelief, and Bobby responded, saying: "Don't get me wrong; his job is important, but not as important as you and Dean. And he just _hates_ being away from you boys."

"So why does he have to go away?"

"Cuz that's what being an adult is, Sam. Doin' the things you may not always want to do, because they have to be done. Doing this – his job – it's the only way your dad knows to take care of you. He's just trying to do the best he can by you kids, considering the circumstances."

Bobby moved the pan of ground beef off the heat and turned the burner off before moving to stand in front of Sam. He pulled the boy to the edge of the counter where his legs swung free along the base cabinet.

"Look," he said, taking ahold of Sam's chin and gently directing the boy's eyes to his. "Your whole life, all you've known is your dad and your brother, but before you boys came along, your dad just had your mom. They were partners; partners in marriage and in friendship and in love. Partners in raising you two rugrats. And when she died…well kiddo, it's not easy raisin' two boys without your partner, but I think he's doin' a pretty good job. I mean look at ya." Bobby stepped back and tugged at Sam's oversized pant legs; smiling. "You're growin' like weeds, the both of you. It takes a lot of work and a pretty good daddy to bring up two good, smart young men. So, don't be too hard on your old man, and just know that if he could, he'd be here with you all the time." He patted Sam's thigh softly and smiled. "Now, what do you say, we finish up this macaroni. I don't know about you, but I'm hungry."

"Me too," Sam said, nodding enthusiastically.

"Alright then, hand me that jug of milk there behind you, the butter and that bowl of cheese you just cut up."

They went back to work and when Bobby was dishing up the macaroni, he once again caught sight of the little crinkle in Sam's forehead.

"Hey Bobby, can I ask a question?"

"Sure kid, shoot."

"How come you got a beard now?"

Bobby turned and gave Sam a puzzled look. "What? You don't like it? It's real soft, see?" Bobby snatched Sam's wrist and brought the boy's hand up to his auburn jaw. Sam's eyes went wide with surprise and then softened when he smiled and curled his fingertips into the short curls.

"That is weird," Sam said in awe. "It really _is_ soft. Like puppy hair. Like Abrams. Are you tryin' to look like Santa?"

"With a red beard? No, kid. Just tryin' to stay warm."

"Well, I guess that's okay."

Bobby chuckled and ruffled Sam's hair. "I'm so glad I have your approval."

-O-o-o-O-

After his little heart-to-heart with Sam and then watching the boys eat their dinner – each of them wearing clothes that did not belong to them – Bobby came to a decision. He put Dean in charge for the afternoon and drove into town, returning several hours later with his passenger seat piled high with packages wrapped in brightly colored paper and ribbons.

The boys stumbled out onto the porch, pushing and shoving each other to get the first glimpse of their very own Santa Claus making an early delivery. "Don't just stand there, gawkin'. Open the door for me."

Sam bent in half, covering his mouth with both hands and giggled gleefully.


	3. Part Three

Late 1991

The next couple of years passed in a blur. Between hunts, John came and went, and with him, his boys, who were growing in leaps and bounds.

Sam was in the 3rd grade and loving it. He flourished in reading and math, just as Bobby knew he would and it had been suggested by several of the schools that he had attended that John might consider moving him up to the next grade level. John balked at the idea and grumbled out of earshot of the boys that Sam was drawing unwanted attention to himself and their family, even if deep down he was extremely proud of his youngest.

Twelve year old Dean, who had been 'in the know' for years, was becoming more and more invested in his father's way of life. He was well-trained in most of John's weapons and had walked into Bobby's house one late-October afternoon, beaming with pride and beyond excited to show off his newly crafted sawed-off.

Like the boys, Bobby too had changed. As it turned out, having a couple snot-nosed little brats around on a semi-regular basis had sparked the long dormant part of him that had sort of maybe wanted kids. The part that valued family. The part that turned twelve sorts of damn-fool gooey when the boys insisted on calling him 'Uncle Bobby'. It seemed only natural that 'Uncle Bobby' would make a place for those boys in his life and in his home, that he would replace the full-sized bed in the spare bedroom with a pair of twins. He'd purchased a set of drawers from an auction so that the boys could get comfy during their occasional extended visits, and soon after that, his house began to feel rather like a home instead of the empty shell it had been. A book left behind, crayon art taped to the fridge, a stray sock in his laundry; Bobby could try and pretend it was unwanted clutter, but really, these were little reminders of the boys and they made him happy. The way he looked at it, he was making the best out of a tough situation. A single daddy with two little boys, who needed a place to unwind after weeks on the road; a place where they could stretch out a bit and just be. Bobby's place was ready-made for that. John had been quick to point out that Bobby's efforts were wasted, although that didn't stop John, himself, from leaving a few things behind as well.

"You haven't, by chance, seen a six inch silver blade lying around, have you?" John asked one morning.

"Onyx handle? Yep, top drawer, left of the sink."

"Thanks. I've been looking for that for three weeks. Thought I was losing my mind."

Like Rufus, John had become Bobby's unwitting partner. There were early morning phone calls to strategize on hunts and late night research sessions involving lots of coffee and stimulants – the legal kind, of course. In truth, Bobby had become an integral resource to John, and John had come to trust and rely on the older man.

That being said, John still could not find it in himself to let down all the barriers he had built up over the years. They talked, as friends often do, confiding in each other and accepting the brunt of each other's hardships when the need arose, but there always remained an unexplained distance between them; a distance that was oftentimes widened by their varied views on the upbringing of John's boys.

-O-o-o-O-

Bobby knew of course that he had no say in how John chose to raise his kids and for the most part, he had no qualms, except on the rare occasion when one of the boys would come to him rather than turn to their own father. Like now, when he had Sam standing before him, digging the toe of his tennis shoe into the faded floral rug.

"You know, I don't go in much for this game you're playin', young man," he scolded. "If your Daddy said no, then the answer's no. Don't come to me, hoping you can con me into giving in."

"Yessir." Sam lowered his eyes to the floor, looking properly chastised. He twisted his foot nervously, burning a hole in the carpet. Bobby reached up from where he sat on the sofa and pushed lightly against the boy's shoulder, drawing his attention back up from the floor.

"Besides, money is hard to come by these days, and your Dad…he's working hard just to give you boys clothes that fit and food that fills. At the end of the day, he doesn't have two cents to rub together, let alone two more to give to you."

Bobby watched as Sam thought hard about that for a moment, his features visibly darkening as a thousand thoughts raced through that little head and he tried to devise a plan C. Bobby pulled Sam gently onto his lap.

"Can I ask what you want the money for?" he inquired.

"I wanted to get a Christmas present…for my Dad."

"Oh." Bobby tossed a couple options around in his head before giving Sam a small squeeze. "I think we can handle that. I bet I have just the thing around here."

"Really?"

"Absolutely."

Early 1992

Glancing up from the papers and maps he had strewn across the dinette table, John found Dean standing just inside the room looking pale and wary. He heard the sharp intake of breath when their eyes met and caught the fidgeting movement of Dean's hands at the hem of his over shirt.

"What's the matter with you," John asked gruffly and turned back towards his research.

"I – um…that is, _we_ need to talk," the young man stammered.

"Not now, Dean."

Dean stepped forward, crossing to the table, and set John's hunting journal down over top of the paperwork covering the surface. He pressed an accusing finger into the soft brown leather, earning John's full attention.

"It can't wait," he stated, and as an afterthought, added, "sir."

John sat back, pushing his chair away from the table. He folded his arms over his chest and brushed a hand across his unshaven chin. "Okay?"

"Sammy knows."

Perplexed, John leaned forward and lifted his journal from the table. Leafing through it as though he'd never seen it before, he finally turned an eye up to his son and asked, "Sammy knows what?"

"Everything," Dean said slowly, stretching the word out meaningfully. "I shoulda told you sooner. I've been –"

"Sooner than what?" John barked, and his twelve year old shrank somewhat beneath his angry tone.

"Christmas," he answered. "Sammy dug your journal out in Nebraska and he read it. I didn't know, Dad. I _swear_."

"You were supposed to be watching him."

The slew of apologetic words from Dean went largely unnoticed because at that moment, John's attention was caught by a page in his journal. Not the page, specifically, but what was sketched out on the page; a pair of gold eyes.

It was a child's drawing; something he'd discovered quite by accident while investigating a death similar to Mary's. A little girl, who couldn't have been more than five or six at the time, had tugged on his arm and given him the drawing – an image that her aunt explained had haunted the child since the death of her mother. He had accepted it graciously, tucking it into his notes and later had been unable to throw it away.

Remembering the haunted look in that child's eyes and knowing how it got there, John struggled with his own need to protect his children. Protect them if he could, prepare them if he must.

"Dad?"

"Wha?" John shook himself, coming back to his senses and found Dean standing in front of him, looking worried. "Sorry, what'd you say?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing." John quickly closed the journal and tossed it back on the table. "I don't want your brother involved in this. Do you understand me?"

"Yessir."

Nodding his approval, John rose from the chair and moved towards the bedroom where he had left a half-empty bottle of Scotch, but didn't even make it through the doorway before Dean was reversing his answer. "I mean, no sir. Sammy's not gonna let this go…sir." Dean tucked his hands behind his back and stood tall, lifting his chin and doing his best to demonstrate the level of maturity and confidence that his dad would find admirable.

And it worked.

John lifted a hand in offering, ushering Dean into the bedroom. "Okay, lemme hear your thoughts."

It wasn't every day that John relinquished his tight hold on control, but looking after Sammy was pretty much Dean's full time job. And although it was a heavy load to put on the boy's slim shoulders, John knew that Dean handled it pretty well…at least most of the time. There'd been slip ups over the years – the incident with the Shtriga immediately sprang to mind – but Dean was growing up and he had long since proved that he took this responsibility – his duty to his brother – seriously.

Dean frowned, tugging a bit of his lower lip into his mouth and chewing on it as he considered his words. And after a long moment, he let out a deep breath and looked John in the eye.

"I _don't_ think we can keep this from him anymore. I think we have to bring him on board."

John prepared to dispute this idea, but Dean wasn't finished. He went on, saying, "Sammy's a little kid, Dad, but he's smart and if he doesn't understand something, he'll go out of his way to figure it out."

"Of course he will," John sighed, casting his eyes skyward. "He gets that from your mother, you know."

Most days, the yearning John felt for Mary was like a gaping hole in chest. It was painful and left him struggling to breathe. But then there were days when he would look at his children and see Mary looking back through them. It made him want to try that much harder to avenge her death.

John had long ago started a mental list of all the boys' little quirks and attributes that were specifically passed down by her: Dean's eyes, nose and his ready-made instinct to care for his family; Sam's soft heart, quick temper, his love of books and insatiable curiosity.

"Guess I'll have to start carryin' my journal with me," John decided, as if that would solve all his problems.

"It won't matter, Dad," Dean said, shaking his head. "He saw enough."

"Alright. What do you suggest?"

"I don't know. Train him? I mean, I started training when I was his age, right?"

"Actually, you were younger."

"Right. So, if I can do it. Sammy can do it. And…I can help. Like you always say, he is my responsibility. I could train him; start him off with something easy like target practice or knives and stuff. I could teach him the right way to clean your guns. I mean, if that's what you want."

"I never wanted either _one_ of you involved in this, but I didn't really have a choice. You're too young to remember, but after your mom…you know…" John snatched the bottle of whiskey from his bedside table and sat down heavily on the bed. Spinning the cap free, he took a long, deep pull from the bottle. "A lot of folks – friends of ours mostly – thought maybe, I should let you boys be put into foster care. Just until I could get my head on straight."

"But you didn't, right? I'd remember that." Dean frowned as he cast around in the memories of a confused four year old for a time when he'd been cared for by someone other than Dad. He came up with nothing.

"No, I didn't. How could I? You boys were all I had left of your mom and I was –" John closed his eyes, gulped down another big drink, and then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "If I let you outta my sight, how was I ever gonna protect you from whatever hurt your mom?"

"Dad."

John felt the bed dip beside him and the warmth of Dean's hand envelope his as he the bottle pulled free of John's tight grip. Only when Dean called to him again, did John open his eyes. "Dad, it's okay. Nothin's gonna happen to me or Sammy. Nothin's gonna happen, cuz you're always gonna be there to stop it. That's what you do."

"You make me sound like…" John huffed out a laugh. "Like some kind of superhero."

Dean shrugged. "You kind of are."

November 1993

The bell above the door announced his arrival even before he stepped into the establishment, but the dinner rush had the place buzzing and one new face among many wasn't enough to stem the bartender's flow. "Be right with you," she called out, just barely acknowledging him.

He took a seat at the bar and watched her as she moved fluidly from the kitchen to the bar and from the tap to the sink, always busy, always with at least three tasks at hand. She scraped a dinner plate into the garbage before dropping it into the sink where it sank beneath the warm suds, and then she reached into them herself, pulling out a dish rag. She wrung the water from the cloth and ran it down the length of the bar until she was standing directly in front of him, and without looking up, asked, "What can I get for ya?"

"Whiskey sour," he answered without hesitation, a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth when her hand froze mid-swipe. She looked up sharply; a mix of surprise and something else he couldn't quite name.

"Oh no," she said, pointing an accusing finger at his chest. "Not today."

"Hello Ellen." He tilted his head down into his hand and rubbed along his bristled jawline, looking up at her from beneath long dark eyelashes and smiling.

"Stop that. You do not get to come at me with that voice of yours –"

"My voice?"

"– and those…those bedroom eyes and expect to get whatever you want. I'm not a fool for your charms, John Winchester."

"You're makin' me blush." He flashed a full-scale grin, exposing the dimples that lay hidden beneath his three-day-old beard growth.

"Forget it," she continued to argue. "No way, no how. Not today, no thank you."

John raised a perplexed eyebrow. "Seriously, Ellen? Things are so good you can afford to turn away paying customers?"

"I've had about all I can handle today. I don't know what's going on, and I know it's not good, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna have the both of you wallowin' and cryin' and drownin' your sorrows; keepin' me here all blasted night, just because you haven't got a natural born coping mechanism between you."

"What? Who's crying? When have you _ever_ seen me cry? Wait…whadaya mean, 'both'?"

Ellen turned and pointed. John leaned across the bar so he could line up his sights with hers. The back corner booth was cloaked and isolated from the rest of the bar by heavy shadows, but settled at the table, with his head in his hands, was Bobby Singer, looking more morose than John had ever seen anyone look.

"He's been there since I opened this morning."

John's teasing smile melted away and he blindly reached into his shirt pocket, pulling out a wad of cash and passing it Ellen's direction. "On second thought, forget the sour. Just bring me the whiskey."

"I already told you, John, not here and not tonight. I got a little girl waiting at home for me or have you forgotten?"

"Short little thing, blonde pigtails, runs around here scarpin' quarters off all the customers for that Pac Man video game she likes so much. Yeah, kinda hard to forget the lil scoot."

"Alright then, you understand. And with Bill out on a job –"

"Ellen." John laid a hand over hers, stilling the flow of words. "Give me the bottle.

"Fine," she gritted out. She grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker off the shelf and cracked open the seal, spinning the lid off. She snatched three glasses from beneath the counter and poured a generous portion into one of the glasses. John frowned at her in confusion until she threw the drink back and then wiped her mouth on her sleeve. "Fine, but come 11 o'clock, I'm closing up shop and going home."

"Yes ma'am." He gave her a slow wink and then gathered up the glasses and bottle and headed for the back corner booth.

Sliding into the booth, John poured three fingers into each glass, floating one across the table into Bobby's waiting hand. "Have you any idea how long a drive it is here from Sioux Falls?" he asked and took a drink.

"'Bout four hours, give or take," Bobby replied into his glass. He didn't look up, or lift the glass to his lips, or even acknowledge that he was gripping it just a little too tightly. He just stared into the amber swirls as if they held all the answers to the universe. It was unsettling, and John leaned in, tilting his own drink up, clinking their glasses together to break the tension.

"What're ya doin' here, John?" Bobby asked weakly.

"I was about to ask you the same thing. What happened? Ellen says –"

"She _called_ you?" Bobby loomed angrily over the table, his voice filled with betrayal. "Damn nosey woman!"

"Lower your voice," John admonished. "She didn't call me, alright? I came here on my own, working a job down in Lincoln, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out something's wrong with you. You've taken up residence in a dark corner, you smell like a brewery, _plus_ there's that look on your face."

"What look?" Bobby huffed, glowering across the table at John.

"The one that says, 'it's all my fault'."

Bobby did drink then, throwing the whiskey back as if it alone could wash away the guilt that was so clearly choking him, and he didn't stop drinking until it was gone. He smacked the empty glass down on the table and looked up at his friend, expectantly. John complied.

Bobby took back his glass, sloshing whiskey on the table as he did so, and slumped back into his seat. He let his head thump heavily against the back of the wooden bench with a sigh.

"Ya ever think 'bout where you'd be right now," he asked, pausing to take an unsteady drink, "if you hadn't…fallen into this life? How things might've turned out different?"

"I try not to," John answered somberly. He ran his fingers over the table, gathering a few stray droplets of whiskey that had splashed out of Bobby's glass. Using it as finger paint, John traced out a capital M. They sat quietly for a moment; both of them watching the initial evaporate, and when it was barely recognizable, John wiped it away. "What good would it do me? Thinkin' that way, dwelling on the past and all the things that could've been, it's not gonna change anything." Instinctively, he shrugged his shoulders up around his ears to ward off the imagined blast of cold and pain that swamped him whenever his mind drifted toward his past life. "It'd only make life that much harder for me to cope with."

"Yeah," Bobby affirmed. "You're right. I _know_ you're right." But all the while he was agreeing, Bobby's head was shaking slowly back and forth. He sat up, placed his glass on the table and folded his hands over it in mock-prayer.

"Bobby, what's going on?" John asked carefully, growing increasingly concerned.

"My wife…she wanted kids. I ever tell ya that?"

"Don't think so." John waited to see if Bobby would continue, and when he didn't, John prodded him on, asking, "And you didn't?"

Bobby shook his head.

"But you're rethinking that decision now?"

"Naw. Just…wonderin'." Bobby looked down into his hands, running his thumb along the base of his ring finger where a wedding band should have been. "Wonderin' if things'd been different, if we'd had more time together, maybe I'd've…come around to her way of thinkin'."

"Bobby Singer…Dad." John chuckled softly. "It does have kind of a nice ring to it."

"No it don't. Don't say stuff like that," Bobby complained and wagged an angry finger in John's face, looking at the man as though he'd suddenly sprouted a second head. "I'da been a _terrible_ dad."

"What're you talking about? You'd have been a great father. Hell, look at my kids. You're a natural with them."

Bobby banged his palms against the table, shaking the glasses. "I can't protect them!" He quickly snatched up his drink, threw back the remainder of it, and poured a third, drinking it down in rapid succession. "I try." Bobby's voice shook, growing quiet, and he turned away from John, looking out into the bar, searching for something to ground him. John followed his gaze, landing on Ellen as she worked her way around the room. "I tried. All my life I tried to protect the people around me. The people I love," he continued, "and all my life I failed. I look at Ellen, with Bill and cute little Joanna, or you with Sam'n Dean, and think, 'get away from them, you moron. Run away as fast as you can before you hurt them too.'"

"Bobby, you –"

"Don't bring the boys around no more."

"What?" John was stunned. It was as though Bobby had slammed a door in his face; unmovable and absolute, and his ears were ringing with the finality of it.

"I don't want 'em there. Don't want _you_ there neither. Best y'all just stay away from me," he commanded, knocking into the table and making the bottle wobble dangerously.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." John reached out to steady the bottle, raising his hands in surrender to still Bobby's fitful behavior. "Where's this coming from? Hey, talk to me dammit," he urged when Bobby didn't answer. "What happened?"

Bobby swatted John's hands down. "I told ya. I can't protect any of ya."

"Protect us from what?" John voice cracked as he felt fear zing through him like lightning. "You're just goin' round and round in circles, Bobby. You're not making any sense."

"Everyone I ever cared about's gotten hurt and it's been on me ever'time. D'ya know what that's like? Rufus was right. Just stay away from me." Bobby shuffled along the seat, escaping the booth, and moved towards the Roadhouse's rear exit.

"Dammit, stop." Snatching the bottle of whiskey and waving off Ellen's worried look, John followed quickly and burst out the back door; the screen slapping loudly behind him. He jogged after Bobby, who lumbered on unsteady legs towards his pickup. "I said stop, Goddammit!" He caught ahold of Bobby's arm and directed the man away from the cab of his truck and pinned him bodily to the boxside. "Okay, we're gonna slow this down, take a damn breath and talk for a second. For one, you ain't driving anywhere in your condition."

"Fine. Get off me," Bobby demanded, pushing at John.

John stepped back, giving Bobby some room to breathe, but not enough that he could escape a second time.

"And two," he continued, ticking off his points on his fingers, "we haven't finished this bottle yet."

Bobby conceded and allowed John to guide him to the tailgate. He sank down onto it, bowed his head and held himself upright with his hands braced on the tailgate and breathed; slow and even, until John wondered whether or not he'd fallen asleep.

John sat down beside him and very carefully nudged Bobby's shoulder. "What did Rufus say?"

Bobby glanced up at John, his brows drawn high in confusion. John took a long pull from the whiskey bottle and then offered it up to Bobby, pressing the bottle into his grasp, but instead of drinking, Bobby continued to stare in confusion.

"Inside," John clarified. "You said, 'Rufus was right.' What's that supposed t'mean? Right about what?"

"Doesn't mean nuthin'," the older man grunted, sagging deeper into his hunched position, letting the bottle sag between his knees.

"Somethin' happen between you two?" Next to him, Bobby snorted derisively. "Bad hunt?"

Bobby lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a quick drink, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "You could say that."

"Everybody okay?" John prodded. He hated having to do this; having to drag information out of the man this way. Neither one of them were much for talking things out, but it was more than obvious – at least to John – that this was one time when talking would be required. So it'd be nice, for all parties involved, if Bobby would make with the English.

After a long moment of silence, and almost to the point when John felt he needed to nudge his friend again, Bobby finally admitted that, no. Not _everyone_ had come out of it 'okay'.

-O-o-o-O-

John had met Rufus Turner a handful of times. Had even worked a job with him when, after a particularly rough hunt, Bobby had worn himself down and taken sick. Laid up in bed, Bobby had Nurse NightinDean fussing over him and plying him with tomato and rice soup, while Sam had taken up residence in Bobby's room reading to him, first the newspaper at Bobby's request, then his own storybooks, and lastly just making up stories until the poor man had finally begged him off.

When John had been satisfied that his boys had the situation well in hand, he'd left, joining Rufus on a road trip that had landed them in Gary, Indiana, neck deep in an unexplained zombie outbreak. And who didn't enjoy a good zombie outbreak every once in a while? After all, they _were_ zombies.

They had worked well together, even though Rufus had been a stubborn S.O.B., arguing proper methods and kill tactics most of the time, until John had found himself knocked to the ground, on his back, beneath what had been the local librarian.

"Just shoot the damned thing," John had shouted, angry and desperate. "In the head."

Rufus had shrugged and put a 22cal. into the head of the bitch who had been drooling and spitting all over John's leather. She'd dropped dead—again—on top of him; blood and brains splattered across the side of his face and dripping grossly into his ear.

It was during that hunt, that John discovered that he and Rufus had a lot more in common than the job. After they had policed their brass and cleaned themselves up in the motel – poor housekeeper that had to deal with that mess in the morning – they'd gone out to the highway and found a truck stop that served 24hr breakfast. Over coffee, eggs and ham steak, Rufus had pulled a photo from his wallet and slid it across the table. Rufus was a father.

She had been a beautiful young woman, John remembered, attending school in upstate, New York and wanting nothing what-so-ever to do with her father. Bad blood, Rufus had explained, tipping the contents of a silver flask into his coffee. His daughter – John forgot her name, now – had disowned her old man, never forgiving him for her mother's untimely and unnatural death.

"You got boys, right?" Rufus had asked, to which John had nodded. "Don't ever give 'em a reason to hate you, you understand? Do whatever ya gotta do to make 'em happy. S'not easy, doin' what we do, but this…" he'd reached across the table, plucking the photo from John's fingers and slid it back into his wallet, patting it fondly. "This is what'll happen if you mess it all up."

That night had changed things for Rufus. John thought it was funny how that worked; half an hour of small talk over a cup of juiced-up coffee in some random truck stop had inspired the older hunter to reach out to his kid. He had found her, but not quite where he'd thought he'd find her. Turned out she hadn't so much been attending school as she had been hunting werewolves. Upstate New York apparently had a very healthy population, or at least it did have until young Turner had set her sights on them. And damn, why couldn't he remember her name?

-O-o-o-O-

"She's dead, John," Bobby said. "And what happened…it's on me. Rufus ain't never gonna forgive me." Bobby snorted. "Hell, I ain't never gonna forgive me."

Bobby's body language spoke volumes as to the whos and whats had happened. Rufus's daughter was dead and the partnership between Bobby and Rufus had died with her.

John sighed unhappily. He turned and scooted up further into the bed of the pickup, leaning back until he was rested against the boxside with his arms wrapped tight around his knees. The cold of the metal quickly seeped through his multiple layers, chilling him to the point of shaking. He reached out his hand and without a word between them, Bobby passed John the bottle. A long slow pull of the bottle warmed his throat and belly; even if it was a false warmth.

"So you screwed up," he said finally, after giving it several minutes' consideration. "Tragic as hell, but it happens. This job, Bobby…hell this _life…_it ain't easy. And there are no guarantees. I don't need to tell you this. The fact is, people die. N'most the time, we can't do shit-all about it, but I _know_ you. You'd never let somethin' bad like this happen if you could do anything to stop it."

"You don't know that. You don't know what I did."

"I know you didn't endanger that girl. Not on purpose. You're not _that_ guy," he argued when Bobby rolled his eyes. John rubbed his hand up roughly through his hair, leaving it standing up at wild angles.

"Don't matter. Ain't gonna happen again. I won't let it."

"So what? You're just gonna cut yourself off from the world? Hack us out of your life like we don't exist?"

"If that's what it takes."

"Bullshit. This ain't about keeping anyone safe," John accused. "It's about makin' sure you don't havta watch it all when it does fall apart. That's cheatin' Bobby. And cowardly."

"Then I'm a coward."

"No. You're not. You're hurtin'. I'd be hurtin' too, but this 'don't come around no more' bull ain't gonna fly with me."

"I can't be trusted, John," Bobby argued. "Not around those boys."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

Bobby reached for the bottle, floundering unsteadily and catching himself before he fell, face first into the bed of the truck. John rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"I don't know if it's slipped your notice," John said, handing the bottle off, "but we ain't gotta lot of people in our lives. Mostly on account of me havin' trust issues," he admitted, "but I trust you, Bobby. I do. That ain't easy for me to say. And my boys; they trust you too. Hell, they love you. You may not be blood, but you're family. And the boys'd be hurt as hell if you tried to cut them outta your life."

"Yeah," Bobby conceded with a long, slow sigh. "I know."

John took pity on the man. He slid back across the tailgate and draped an arm around Bobby's shoulders. "Don't know why you'd wanna get rid of me anyway. I'm a joy to be around."

Bobby sputtered into the bottle and came away coughing, choking out, "Idjit."

May 1995

Bobby swung the door open wide and was surprised to find John leaning heavily against the door frame. He was painted liberally with dried blood and his hair was plastered like mud to the side of his face and neck.

"That yours?" Bobby asked; his heart racing despite his best efforts to remain calm.

John shook his head and looked up, his eyes weighted with pain and grief. It was all Bobby could do to reach out to him. He gripped the front of John's denim jacket and pulled him indoors, holding him up as he leaned back outside to sweep his eagle-eyes over the property one time. "Were you followed?"

"No," John breathed out. He sank onto the wooden bench Bobby had in the entryway and dropped his head into his hands.

To the common observer, the bench was a good place to sit and lace up your boots, but to Bobby, it was a place to stash all manner of deadly instruments, and Bobby had half a mind to remove his stricken friend from any place he might find an easy weapon.

Instead, he squatted down in front of John and put a steadying hand to John's knee. He pushed John back and began a visual inspection. "Look at me," Bobby demanded. "Are you hurt?"

John shook his head.

He looked up, meeting Bobby's scrutinizing gaze with liquid eyes and swallowed hard on the anguish that threatened to choke him. It was an expression Bobby had never seen the man wear and it nearly set him on his ass in shock.

"What happened? Where's Bill?" he asked, afraid to hear the answer. When John didn't answer immediately, Bobby pressed more urgently. "John…where's Bill?"

"He's dead," John blurted out, his eyes wide with panic. "I killed him."

"What?!" Bobby lost his balance and fell backwards onto the floor, the blow of the news knocking him literally off of his feet. "You couldn't have done. You must be –"

"I did, Bobby! Oh my God, what've I done?" John rose up from the bench and began to pace, pulling manically at his shirt and hair as if he was trying to rid himself of the blood-caked evidence. "I killed him!"

Bobby clambered to his feet and caught John by the arm, steering him down the hallway and into the main room. "Sit," he commanded, pushing the man down onto the couch. John sat as instructed, shaking his head in disbelief and spewing an angry word vomit to the room. Beneath the streaks of day-old blood, he was pale – pasty even – and if the amount of flop sweat that coated his exposed skin was anything to go by, Bobby figured he had less than a minute before the man either threw up or passed out.

"Fantastic morning," Bobby grumbled, moving quickly to the kitchen. He pulled a plastic tumbler out of the sink, gave it a quick rinse and then filled it with water. "Here, drink this."

Kneeling on the floor in front of the man, Bobby pressed the cup into John's grasp, wrapping his own hands around John's and guiding the cup to the man's mouth. "Slowly," he coached. "Not too much."

John squeezed his eyes shut and took slow, shallow sips; his throat working overtime to keep the water from coming back up. When he'd taken a few ounces, Bobby pulled the cup away. "S'okay?" he asked. John nodded weakly, but then suddenly lurched forward. Bobby tossed the cup aside to catch John by the arms; John's head falling heavily against Bobby's shoulder as his stomach surged and emptied its contents on to the floor between them.

"Whoa there, easy bud," Bobby comforted, thumping his palm against John's back in a make-shift hug. "Come on, John. You've got to pull yourself together."

Bobby had marched John's boys up the stairs to the bath tub countless times in the years that he'd known the Winchesters. It had always been a difficult chore for Bobby, because it had meant pulling those two wild Indians away from their outdoor play. And if there was one thing Sam and Dean had loved, it had been playing outside in the salvage yard. Bobby had taken to luring the boys indoors with food, which had worked pretty well with Dean, and wherever Dean went, his baby brother followed. But a long day of fresh air and hard play, coupled with a full belly, often meant that little Sam was draggin' ass by bath time, and on more than one occasion Bobby had to carry the lil tike up the stairs.

In this way, John was so very much like his youngest son. Bobby pulled the nearly limp man to his feet, groaning with disgust at the mix of stomach juices and tepid water that was splattered between them and pooled at their feet.

"Upsy Daisy."

He ducked under John's arm and slung an arm around John's waist, grabbing ahold of the man's belt to steady him. Then they walked, slow and cautious up the staircase and down the short hallway to the bathroom. Bobby directed John into the tub, clothes and all, instructing him to sit, and then turned on the shower. Warm water cascaded over John's bowed head, sluicing through and loosening the blood and matter from his hair and skin, until the bottom of the tub was swirled pink.

Bobby rinsed his own hands beneath the spray and then excused himself from the room to change out of the vomit splattered clothes. He gathered up a change of clothes for John and returned to the bathroom, closing the lid and taking a seat on the toilet beside the tub.

"Why are you doing this?" John asked, barely a whisper. His hands moved slow, but deliberately; running a bar of Irish Spring over his head. He scratched at his scalp, working the soap into a weak lather beneath his fingers.

"I do have shampoo, you know," Bobby responded without addressing John's question. The answer, he reckoned, should be apparent after all these years. John himself had called Bobby family, and as near as Bobby could figure, this was just one of those things family did for each other. "Gimme your foot."

He took John's booted foot in his hand and tugged at the soaking wet laces. When he'd worked them loose, he pulled the boot free, dropping it with a heavy wet thud onto the bathroom floor, and then moved to the next foot.

"We're gonna have to get you outta those clothes," he said, studying the situation.

John looked up from the bottom of the porcelain tub, appearing beyond pitiful; soaking wet and heartbroken. He laid his hand on Bobby's and squeezed. "You don't have to do this."

"Shut up…" Bobby frowned and shook off John's hand. "Idjit. M'not doing anything that you wouldn't do if the situation were reversed."

John nodded and dropped his eyes into his lap. He let out a shaky breath and brought his hands up to hide his face. "What am I gonna do? Huh Bobby? What am I supposed to do?"

Bobby stood up and turned off the water which had grown cold. He took hold of John below the elbows and tugged. "Come on. We're gonna get you cleaned up first, and then after, we can figure out the rest."

John let himself be pulled up, but when Bobby tried to strip him of his over shirt, he held up his hands. "Whoa. Don't think you're getting my clothes off, Singer," John warned. "I love you man, but…"

"Don't flatter yourself," Bobby grumbled. He pulled a towel down out of the cupboard and draped it over the man's shivering back. "You're not _even_ my type."

John huffed out an aborted laugh, and then sagged visibly.

"Hey." Bobby stepped into John's line of sight. He pulled the towel up and used it to casually pat John's hair dry. "One step at a time, alright? You finish cleaning up. Change of clothes is right there for ya."

"What're you gonna do?" John asked, his eyes betraying the panic he felt, as though he thought Bobby would walk out of that room and never come back. Bobby moved to reassure him, wrapping a warm hand around the back of John's neck to comfort the man.

"I ain't going anywhere 'cept the kitchen. Okay? You get dressed and we'll reconvene and hash this out. You understand what I'm saying."

John nodded again and began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. Satisfied that John now had things under control, Bobby left him to it. He made his way down the stairs, but instead of turning toward the kitchen, Bobby detoured out the front door and down the walk. As quietly as possible he opened the driver's door of the black Chevy and took the keys from the ignition, and then rounded to the trunk. The key slid home easily, but Bobby hesitated, breathing rapidly and worrying his bottom lip before finally turning the key. The lid sprang open.

Bobby closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as if that might eradicate the image instantly burned into his memory. No such luck.

The body of Bill Harvelle lay across the false bottom of the Impala's trunk, wrapped carefully in a motel blanket, and it was everything Bobby could do, not to turn his head and heave up his own breakfast.

Bill had been a good man and Bobby's friend. He was also a father and a husband and a hunter. He didn't deserve to die like this. What man did? Unfortunately, that was the cold reality of the job. People died. Good people.

-O-o-o-O-

When John had finished cleaning up and was dressed, he made his way downstairs and padded quietly through the house on socked feet. So quietly, in fact that Bobby jumped and grabbed at his chest when he turned and caught John standing silently in the kitchen doorway.

"You tryin' to give me a heart attack?" he accused.

"Sorry," John muttered, not looking up from the spot his eyes were locked on. Bobby followed his haunted gaze and saw the tell-tale splatter of blood on the kitchen linoleum. It wasn't at all related to John's problem – poor Bill – but rather a wayward droplet that Bobby had failed to clean up after he had opened up his hand for a bit of recreational spell work; if there was such a thing as recreational spell work.

"It's not what you think. Here, come sit down. I fixed you a sandwich." Bobby set a plate down on the table, and then took John by the arm, maneuvering him into the kitchen chair. "It's not much," Bobby explained, "but I didn't figure you could handle too much."

"I need a drink."

"Normally, I'd be the first one to agree with that, but not this time. A drink isn't gonna solve this problem, bud."

"And a sandwich will?" The question had none of the usual bite that Bobby would naturally associate with a John Winchester debate. In fact, John's argument seemed to deflate beneath Bobby's scrutinizing eyes.

"Yeah." Bobby took hold of the chair across from John, spun it around and straddled the seat. "You're pale, John. The dark circles under your eyes say you haven't slept in days and Lord knows the last time you ate. It's real hard to be a barely-functioning alcoholic if you're not actually functioning to begin with. Trust me. I should know. "

"I don't need a lecture." John's voice did rise at that; enough that Bobby sat back, holding his hands up in submission.

"And I'm not giving you one, alright? I'm _giving_ you a sandwich. So just…cool your jets."

"Sorry," John mumbled, sagging back into his chair.

"And quit saying you're sorry."

John's mouth quirked up into the faintest half-smile, but it was an improvement, so Bobby accepted it for the gift that it was, and watched John lift the sandwich to his mouth and take a small bite.

-O-o-o-O-

When John had eaten about a third of the sandwich and begged off of the rest, Bobby decided it was time to get down to business.

"So what's your game plan?" he asked, setting John's plate down by the sink. He turned and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms.

John shook his head, looking oddly apprehensive. "I, uh, don't –"

"You drove halfway across the country with a body in the trunk. You had to have some sort of plan."

It came out a bit harsher than Bobby had intended and he did feel a bit sorry when John choked back an involuntary dry-heave, but there was no use pussy-footing around the subject any longer. Something had to be done about Bill before his corpse began to draw attention to itself. Charm or not, if the police were to catch wind – pun intended – of the contents of John's trunk, there'd be no way in Hell John could talk himself out of the world of hurt that would follow.

"I didn't have a plan," John explained. "I just panicked. I mean, I couldn't leave him there, now could I? I thought to burn his bones, but it just felt wrong; felt like he needed to come home for that."

"So you're planning to take him to Ellen?"

John paled instantly and he quickly covered his mouth, rubbing his hand over his unshaven jaw as though it might hide the fact that he was barely holding it together. He mumbled something under his hand. Something that to Bobby's untrained ear sounded a lot like, 'I can't.'

"Excuse me?"

"I don't think I can do it," John admitted, shrugging his shoulders up around his ears protectively. "What am I gonna say to her? 'Sorry. I know you trusted me, but I killed your husband. Oops.' How's that gonna sound?"

"You didn't kill him."

John sprang to his feet, knocking the chair over with a bang and was in Bobby's face in the blink of an eye. "You're not listening to me," he gritted out between clenched teeth.

Bobby couldn't stop the full-body recoil that zinged through him when John aggressively brought his hand up to Bobby's head. "I put my gun to his head," John fashioned his hand into a gun and pressed two fingers to Bobby's temple, "and I pulled the trigger. What part of that sounds like me _not_ killing Bill?"

Just as quickly as his anger flared, it faded, leaving John panting and near hyperventilation. He turned and sank to the floor, banging his head roughly against the front of Bobby's cupboards.

Bobby backed away on impulse, wanting to put space between himself and the awful truth. And it was the truth. There was no denying it now, and he found himself needing to physically step back and reassess the situation, because John had managed to turn Bobby's world completely upside down with that one statement.

"How?" Bobby stammered. "Why? How could –"

"He begged me, Bobby." John put his head into his hands and squeezed, digging his nails into his scalp like he could pry the memory out of his skull and cast it aside or maybe salt and burn it along with Bill's bones. "It was _in_ him, don't you see? That thing was _in_ him and it was tearing him up from the inside out. He fought it with everything he had, but it was killing him, and Bill must've known what it was going to do, cuz one second he's crying out for El–" John choked back on his own words. He ran the palm of his hand under his eyes, and then wiped the evidence down the thigh of his borrowed jeans and took a deep breath. "He was screaming. Wanting Ellen and Jo – oh God, poor little Jo – and in the next breath he's asking me to end it."

"Was it him? Are you _sure_ it was Bill?"

The look Bobby received was one of despair and uncertainty, followed immediately by conviction. "It was him, Bobby. Without a doubt. I know it was him."

"_How_ do you know? You just said that thing…that _hellspawn_ was in him. So how can you be sure?"

"Jesus! What are you tryin' to do? I said I know. It had this…other voice, okay? It was like nothing I've ever heard before, in a language I've never heard, but Bill was there too. It was like they were fighting for control, but I _know_ that it was Bill in the end. He grabbed my hand and made me promise to protect his family. He put his gun in my hand and begged me to do it. Over and over. 'John shoot me. Shoot me, John!' And I did."

"Sonuvabitch," Bobby breathed. Somewhere in the middle of John's retelling, Bobby had found a chair, and it was a good thing too, because he sincerely doubted that his legs would have held up through the end. He sagged back, removed his cap and ran a hand over his forehead, wiping away the sweat that had beaded up.

"Yeah," John echoed from the floor.

The room went quiet for several minutes as the finality of it all set in. Bill Harvelle was dead. John had killed him. And no one had told Ellen.

"You've got to tell her," Bobby said, barely above a whisper. "You've got to take him home."

"I know."

Bobby gave him a skeptical look and he repeated it with a bit more conviction. "I will. I just…I don't know if I can face her. I mean, it's my responsibility. I know it is and I promised Bill, but…she'll never forgive me."

"She may not, but that's not for you to decide. This is Ellen. She's not a woman to be told what she can and can't do."

John nodded in agreement, his head bobbing left and right as though he were considering his options, until finally, he looked up at Bobby with the most earnest face he could conjure and asked, "Go with me?"

Bobby was taken aback; John Winchester asking for help? What alternate dimension was this and how did he find his way home? But of course the answer was yes. After all, the damned fool had driven nearly 2,000 miles across the country without more than four hours' sleep. Bobby would be hard-pressed to let him drive another mile for fear of John crashing that beautiful car, killing himself in the process.

"Fine, but I'm driving."

-O-o-o-O-

Bobby sat behind the wheel, watching John trek slowly across the gravel lot. It was a lot like watching Molasses creep up hill, he thought. As if on cue, Ellen Harvelle stepped out the door of the Road House, wiping her hands on a bar towel and greeting John with an open smile, and Bobby could hardly stand to watch as a moment later, her face fell. John gestured with his whole body, turning to look over his shoulder at the car, and then reaching his hand out to her; her head shaking slowly back and forth in denial, building steam until she brought her hand up and slapped him. Bobby cringed, feeling the sting as if he'd been the one to receive the hit. The slap and the anguished cry that followed echoed across the bare lot, filling Bobby's ears. He saw Ellen crumple and John with her; his arms wrapped around her, pulling her small body into his chest, and there in the dirt, they sat; crying for their loss.


	4. Part Four

November 1996

John burst through Bobby's front door with a bang, swept in by the freezing rain and cold of the mid-November ice storm. He stomped his boots clean on the front mat before moving into the house, shaking the rain and ice off his back as he went.

"Get a move on boys," he hollered through the house. "Shit, shower and shave; you've got five minutes before we hit the road."

He rounded the corner into the kitchen only to find it empty. "Boys?"

"They're upstairs," Bobby answered, his voice, irritated and strained, sounded from within the library where he sat behind the desk with his nose in a book.

"Doin' what?"

"Getting ready, I suppose," Bobby grumped. "You've got them both trained like dogs. I no more than set breakfast in front of 'em and they had it scarfed down and were runnin' back upstairs to be ready when you called."

John smirked. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is when it's blowin' to beat Hell outside. I don't know why you're so fired up to be on your way. You can't see for shit. There's two inches of ice on the road. Hell, they've got 90 closed down between here and the Minnesota border."

"Look, Bobby. I appreciate you lettin' us stay here last night, but it's like I told ya; I've got that job outside of Duluth, and if we're gonna make it there before nightfall, we gotta get movin'. It wouldn't be a big deal, but Travis asked for my help."

"That Travis is half worthless on a good day," Bobby scoffed, "and I don't trust him to save my life."

"Well then, I guess it's a good thing you're not working with him."

"Just…be careful with that one, alright? And drive careful too, dammit. I don't wanna have to come dig your asses out of some ditch somewhere cuz you're too stubborn to use what little common sense God gave you."

"Bobby, quit yer worryin' and hen peckin'." John took his friend by the shoulders and spun his castered chair around so that he could look him in the eye. "For cryin' out loud, you sound like my mother." John closed his eyes and let an exaggerated shiver run down the length of him.

He didn't wait for Bobby to voice another complaint. He just winked, turned and left the room, jogging up the steps in search of his kids. He followed their voices down the hallway to the bathroom and there he stopped, watching his boys push and shove for control of the sink.

"When are you gonna cut this mop that you call hair?" Dean asked tugging firmly on Sam's overgrown locks. Thirteen-year-old Sam, who was quite a bit smaller than his older brother, had no choice but to trail along behind Dean's pull, but he didn't do so quietly.

"Ow, dammit!" Sam cried out around a mouthful of toothpaste. "Stop Dean, that hurts."

"Well, cut it off if it hurts so damn much." Dean let go of Sam's hair only to grin and smack him playfully in the back of the head. "And don't cuss at me. I'll wash your damn mouth out with soap."

Sam glared into the mirror at his brother and then leaned over the sink spitting out the mint flavored foam. It landed – quite by accident – all over the bristled end of the toothbrush Dean was holding under the faucet; unbeknownst to Dean.

John saw and was quietly proud of the glint of mischief reflected in Sam's eyes as his youngest son watched his brother bring the contaminated toothbrush to his mouth. Ornery little shit. Dean had it comin' though; more often than not.

Dean finished brushing his teeth and rinsed afterwards, all the while watching Sam run a comb through his hair.

"Whatd'ya say Sammy?" he asked when he was finished. "Want me to get the clippers out?"

"Um…no. Do you know _why_ I'm letting my hair grow out? It's cuz you don't know how to cut hair."

"What're you talkin' about? I've been cutting Dad's hair for years."

"Yeah, I know. Have you seen his hair?" Sam's brow lifted in that smart-ass manner he'd picked up recently. The look that said, 'no shit, Sherlock', and John subconsciously reached up to rake through his own hair and force it into some semblance of shape. "There's some days he looks like that Mr. Edwards."

'Who?' John wondered.

"Who?" Dean echoed out loud.

"You know, from Little House on the Prairie. Mr. Edwards. Big bushy beard and hair out to here." Sam demonstrated by pulling his baby-fine brown locks out in all directions.

"No, I don't know," Dean sneered, "cuz I don't watch your girly TV shows."

"Little House is not girly, Dean. People die. It's Old West type shit. I thought you'd be into that."

"That's not Old West, that's a little girl in pigtails. Ohhh…" Dean said, drawing the word out like a thought had just occurred to him. "That's why. You're trying to grow your hair out so we can braid it into pigtails like Laura Ingalls Wilder."

Dean stepped up behind Sam and caught ahold of his brother's hair again, diving his hands in deep and pulling it all together into a makeshift ponytail. Sam tried to fight him off, but there wasn't much he could do with his big brother steering him around by his hair.

"Why didn't you just say so, Sammy? I'd be happy to braid your hair for ya," Dean teased.

"That is disturbing on so many levels, Dean. Very disturbing." Finally, Sam managed to wiggle out of Dean's grasp, punching his brother fiercely in the arm as he escaped. As he was backing out of the room, he laughed. "It also proves that you _do_ watch Little House, cuz I'm not even up to the part where she gets married yet."

"What? No."

Leaving Dean sputtering his denial, Sam scooted out of the room, stopping in front of his father.

"You ready?" John asked quietly.

"Yessir."

"Good boy." John gave Sam a wink, ruffled his hair in approval and nudged him on down the hallway. When Sam was gone and Dean's argument had pittered out, John leaned into the bathroom, propping himself up against the doorway.

"You're gonna have your hands full with him," John warned and grinned unashamedly when Dean jumped at the sound of his voice.

"Dad," he gasped, clutching his chest dramatically.

"One of these days, Dean, he's gonna be bigger than you and you're gonna find yourself on the wrong side of the teasing.

"Naw," Dean scoffed. "I don't know what you saw, but that was nothing. Just a little friendly banter between brothers."

"Sure it was," John smiled knowingly.

"Besides, I let him have that one. It's good for his ego to let him win one every once in a while, you know?"

"Uh huh. Are you ready to go?"

"Yessir," Dean answered sharply, his eyes flashing with excitement. The boy was always ready for the job, and John loved that about his kid. Dean moved to leave, but before he could, John had wrapped a hand around his son's arm, stopping him at the doorway.

"Just so you know, when you were little and your mom used to let _your_ hair grow out…"

"Yeah?" Dean squirmed uncomfortably in John's gentle grip; not liking the direction this story was headed.

"_I_ used to braid _your_ hair."

Dean's mouth fell open in shock and he protested vehemently, "Dad, that is _not_ true!"

John shrugged, grinning. "Well okay, maybe I didn't braid it, but you loved for me to run my fingers through your hair and twirl it about. It relaxed you; put you to sleep. You were a hard little bugger to get down for a nap."

"You better not tell Sammy," Dean warned, bravely wagging a finger in his father's face. John threw his head back and laughed, the rolling sound filling every empty space of Bobby's house to brimming.

"That's not funny, Dad. Stop laughing." Which only made John laugh more. Without another word, Dean stomped off down the hall.

Minutes later they were packed up and in the car, waving goodbye to their host. Bobby was stood on his porch, arms folded and mouth tight. John met his eyes and nodded a silent promise to drive carefully on the icy roads. He glanced across at Dean, happy and eager beside him, and then looked into the rear view mirror and watched Sam sprawl across the back seat, his latest book in his hand. Bobby was right to be worried. John had precious cargo.

May 1997

"No."

John walked quickly through the motel room, out the front door and to the car; followed immediately by an ever persistent fourteen-year-old Sam, who had to jog to keep up with John's long steps.

"Dad please. It's only six weeks and I promise, whatever Pastor Jim needs, I'll do it. Please can I go?"

John popped open the trunk and lowered his duffle bag into the over-sized compartment. "We've been over this, Sammy. The answer is no. I told you; you're not enrolling in summer school this year. I need you and your brother along on this hunt."

"But Dad–"

"That's enough, Sam," John barked. "I don't wanna hear another word about it." He slammed the trunk lid closed. "Now get inside and pack your crap. We're leaving in ten."

He watched Sam swallow a cry of rage, turn on his heal, and stalk back into the motel room, pushing roughly past his brother in the process.

"Watch it, brat," Dean chided. He carried his bag out to the car and adeptly caught the car keys when John threw them to him. Dean slotted the key into the lock and lifted the trunk lid.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do with that kid," John groaned, stepping up beside his eldest son.

Dean shrugged. He lowered his bag into the trunk, carefully closed the lid, and then turned to look at his father. He leaned his hip against the rear end of the car, "He's just gonna keep whining about it, you know. I don't get why you're so dead-set against Sammy doing this summer school thing."

"You know why, Dean," John frowned. Sam had a natural proclivity towards school, and although John could appreciate that, what he needed was for his youngest to develop the same appetite for hunting that Dean had. He was old enough now to be truly involved and it was important, not only for his safety, but for the safety of the entire family, that Sam was one hundred percent committed to the job. One wrong step, one failed attempt and someone could end up dead, and John wasn't going to have that on his watch if he could help it.

"Yeah, I understand," Dean acknowledged. "You need me and Sammy there on this job, but I don't really think you do. I mean, I heard you on the phone last night, Dad. You said there's gonna be a dozen other hunters on this one. Hunters with a hell of a lot more training and experience than Sam's got."

"He's not gonna get any better unless he puts the time in. Maybe if you didn't baby him so damned much–"

"I don't _baby_ him," Dean argued. "Listen. All's I'm saying is he's green. The only thing he's gonna do is get in the way, and this job is too big, too important for you or me to have to be worrying about what Sammy's doing. It's not like he's never been left alone before. And he wouldn't even be alone; he'd be with Pastor Jim."

"Not you too," John groaned.

"It's important to him, Dad," Dean cut him off before John could say anything further. "Plus…it'll shut him up. He's been nothing but a bitch for the last three days."

"Dean," John admonished. He'd always allowed his boys the freedom of expression, to a point anyway, but he could not abide them using foul language on each other. He depended on them to be a team, and being a team meant having respect for one another. Being respectful did not, however, mean that they didn't have normal, big brother-little brother issues.

"It's true, Dad," Dean defended. "If I'd wanted this much drama, I'd have asked for a little sister."

John rolled his eyes and swallowed down the smile that threatened to break across his face. "What exactly do you suggest I do, Dean? Let him run off for a month, playing pretend like he's some normal kid?"

"Isn't he?" Dean shrugged and John could feel his resolve giving way when Dean added, "Let him have this _one_ thing, and I promise when it's all over, I'll work on him; make him understand that he belongs here with us."

"Fine. I'll let him have this; under one condition…you're staying with him."

"What?! Dad, no!"

"That's the deal, Dean. You want Sammy to have this, you gotta stay and look after him. He stays, you stay."

October 1998

"What do you know about Banshees?"

There was a sense of urgency in John's voice that made Bobby roll his eyes, because _everything_ was urgent to John. Bobby sighed, slumping further into the couch with the phone pressed between his shoulder and ear. "Where are you?" he asked.

"Florida," came John's clipped reply. "What's it matter?"

"It matters because depending on which folklore you're goin' by, you could be dealing with any number of things." Bobby climbed to his feet and went to one of his many bookshelves. He ran his fingers over the leather bindings and gilded titles until he found the volume he was looking for, pulling it down from the shelf. "Historically," he said, flipping through the pages, "a banshee is a death omen; a female spirit, sometimes a faerie who wails when someone's about to buy the farm."

"How do I kill it?"

"You don't. It's just an omen. It's not actually causing the deaths, but now that's Irish or Scottish folklore. Here on this side of the pond, we have a whole different variation of the lore. In The Americas, banshees tend to be viewed as –"

"Bobby! I don't need a friggin' history lesson! I just need to know how to kill the bitch. It's taking kids, Bobby. It skins them and then eats them, and I need to stop it before it's too late."

"Too late for what?" Bobby asked when a shiver ran down his back. "What aren't you telling me? John?"

"He's missing, Bobby."

"What?! You mean Sam?"

"We had a fight last night and he locked himself in his room. This morning, he was just…gone. Vanished. I thought maybe he'd run away again or needed to blow off some steam, but when he didn't come back, I got to looking around and I found blood on his window sill."

"What the hell is wrong with you two that you can't get along? Didn't you learn your lesson when he ran off this summer? You get him back, John," Bobby demanded.

"I'm workin' on it, dammit, but you gotta tell me how to kill this thing first. I've only got one chance. Screwing up is not an option."

"Okay. Okay. Worst case scenario. You said it's skinning the victims; these kids." Bobby dove back into his book, scouring the pages for something that fit the M.O. "And eating them…like a ghoul? That makes sense. Here. Here. A Black Annis. It's a type of banshee that feeds on children."

He ran his finger over the words, speed reading through the available material, spitting out bits and pieces of information he felt might be important.

"S'gotta blue face, lives in an oak tree, steals the kids at night, sometimes right outta their own beds, and takes them back to her tree. But she doesn't eat 'em right away. She's gotta fatten them up first; think Hansel and Gretel. She skins them before eating them. Hangs the skins out to dry in the tree; that oughta be easy to find."

"But _how_ do I _kill_ it?"

"They call it a ghoul, so you treat it like a ghoul. Destroy the brain and then burn the bitch. Better safe than sorry."

John grunted a response right before the line went dead. "You're welcome," Bobby complained to the empty room. "Better bring that boy back alive."

He spent the next eighteen hours wearing a path into the faded floral rug that adorned his library floor. In the nine years that he'd known them all, there'd only been a handful of times in which he'd truly felt this worried; this out of control; this helpless, but twice in one year? That seemed a bit extreme.

-O-o-o-O-

It had all started in February after a hunt gone wrong. John had left Sam behind in Lincoln to do what Sam did best: research. What John hadn't expected was for Sam – quite on his own – to stumble across the monster that John and Dean had been unsuccessful in tracking. Sam had made up some cock-n-bull story about how he'd found and dispatched the thing; none of which John believed of course, and afterwards John tightened the leash on Sam a bit. He didn't know how Sam had come across the Kitsune, but he wasn't willing to let it happen again. Not without backup. Sam was forced to come on each hunt after that, which put a big crimp in Sam's plans.

At fifteen, the boy had already been preparing for high school and every missed day of class, was a missed opportunity and set Sam further and further behind. When John had broached the subject of Sam dropping out of school like his brother had done, Sam went ballistic. After the smoke had cleared, Sam was left grounded in their extended stay motel room, Dean was appointed babysitter, and John went off on a weeklong hunt alone.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Sam was gone. Two weeks they spent looking for him. Two hellacious weeks. Dean had about as close to a nervous breakdown as Bobby had ever witnessed and John was worse. When he hadn't been out searching, John poured over the maps until he was passed out from exhaustion, only to be up and searching again in a few hours. He wouldn't eat, barely slept, and hadn't said a word to anyone in days.

Bobby meanwhile had talked to every contact in his book, called in every favor to aid in the search, but Sam had learned from the master and was virtually untraceable. It wasn't until a convenience store clerk outside of Flagstaff copped to having seen a kid matching Sam's description, that they had their big break.

The boy had been into the store on a regular basis buying junk food and paying cash, but as the days had worn on, the cash had dwindled until the boy had just stopped coming in altogether. The clerk had pointed in the direction that he'd seen him come and go and guessed that it had been about four days since he'd seen him last.

At that news, Dean had come unglued. What if Sam had moved on? Or worse, what if something had happened to him? Bobby was made to physically restrain Dean to keep the boy from going after his father, because there were some things that just had to be handled by an adult…just in case.

Two hours later, John returned; his hand gripped tight over the shoulder of his youngest son, afraid to ever let him out of his reach again. Sam had been found holed up in some ramshackle shed in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a dog for companionship. Out of money and out of food, Sam had been understandably – though cautiously – relieved to see his father. When they'd entered the motel, Dean pulled free of Bobby and bum rushed Sam, swamping him in a crushing hug. John followed suit, wrapping his long arms around both his sons, pulling them into his broad chest; his nose buried deep in Sam's hair, breathing him in. The sight had pulled sharply at every heartstring Bobby had left in his careworn body and he collapsed down onto one of the room's beds in relief.

Despite the seemingly happy reunion, their situation did not improve. As Sam had grown older, his relationship with his father had disintegrated into one of constant head butting. They'd argue about anything and everything, from the way Sam tied his boots to the way John demanded obedience without question. Sam was a stubborn child, a trait he no doubt inherited from his father. He was also a young man with dreams and goals, none of which included becoming a hunter, but none of this seemed to matter to John. The thing John didn't understand about his youngest son was that Sam was inquisitive. He had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and had John just taken the time to explain things and teach his son rather than demand and order him about, Sam's teen years would have started a helluva lot smoother than they had. Had he used an ounce of patience with the boy, John would have found himself fronting what could have possibly been the best hunting team out there. Instead, he had a son with one foot constantly out the door and another son who regularly put himself in the middle of his two remaining family members, trying like hell to uphold the peace.

-O-o-o-O-

For that reason, Bobby was more than a little anxious when he saw a familiar black car tearing up the road and in the drive, spraying rock and dust everywhere. Bobby snatched up his phone, dialing John's number as quick as his fingers would let him and pressed the receiver to his ear while watching Dean out the front window.

"Come on. Come on!" Bobby complained into the phone.

Dean climbed out of the car and twisted at the waist, stretching the stiffness out of his back. He then reached into the back seat, pulled out a cloth and set about wiping off the road dust from the car's glossy black shine. John had 'given' the Impala to Dean late that summer, buying himself an '81 GMC pickup. It was a beast of a truck; a powerful 350 4x4 and John was enamored by it, but it was obvious to Bobby that the Impala would always hold a special place in the man's heart, because he was constantly berating Dean about her upkeep.

"Answer the damn – John?"

The line connected and John's voice cut through Bobby's words, "Winchester."

"About damn time. _Please_ tell me you found him."

"What? Oh…yeah, no. I'm sorry. I completely forgot to call you back. Yeah, I found him. He's right here with me. Why? Did you wanna talk –"

"You…you forgot to call?" Bobby stammered.

"Yeah. Bobby, I'm sorry. I was just a little busy, what with the head bashing and brain splatter and God, if _that_ ain't the funkiest smell you've ever tried to wash off of your skin. I'm gonna be breathing that in for weeks. And…hey, Bobby? Are you still there?"

"You forgot to call."

"Yeah. Wait. Are you alright?"

Bobby scoffed into the phone. "Nah. Everything's fine…I guess."

"Okay. If you say so. By the way, Dean oughta be showing up in the next twenty-four hours."

"He's here now," Bobby replied. He starred dumbfound out the window, wondering how anyone could be as dense as John Winchester.

"Oh good. How's my car? Is it in one piece?"

"From what I can tell."

"That's good. That's good. Alright, well tell Dean, if you would, we're on our way. We're about 3 hours out of Orlando, gonna stop somewhere this side of the Georgia/Tennessee line and we'll pick up again in the morning."

"Sure. Whatever you say."

"You sure you're alright?"

"Never better," Bobby deadpanned. He hung up without a word of goodbye, tossing the phone on the sofa. He grabbed his keys and a jacket off a hook on the hallway wall and stormed outside. Dean met him coming up the sidewalk, grinning from ear to ear and looking _well_ satisfied.

"Hey Bobby!"

Bobby stalked right on passed, making a beeline for his Chevelle. "House is yours," he tossed over his shoulder.

"You goin' somewhere? Wait, Bobby." Dean dropped his gear and turned to follow the older man down the walk. "Hold up. Where're you goin?

Bobby turned the ignition over and the car rumbled to life, drowning out Dean's voice. The young man leaned in the driver's window and said, "I just got here."

"Yep. And I'm just leavin'. Your daddy n'brother will be here tomorrow sometime. Don't wreck my house and lock it up when you're gone."

"But where are you goin'?"

"Away."

Bobby slid the car into gear and gave Dean just enough time to push himself clear of the vehicle before Bobby pulled away.

He left; going the way Dean had arrived, and didn't spare the rubber on the tires as he peeled up the road. It was a cruddy thing to do to poor Dean – leaving him standing there, not knowing what had happened or why Bobby was leaving or where he was going – but the way Bobby figured, it was better to leave now than have to fill Dean in on a situation that he didn't properly know the outcome of. It was better to leave before John returned, because Bobby couldn't promise to hold his tongue. In fact, the way he was feeling towards John Winchester right then, he was pretty damn certain that if he did stick around he might even punch the man in the mouth. He'd get at least one clean shot in before being overwhelmed by the rest of the Winchester family.

All Bobby needed was some time to cool off and a bit of separation that would allow him to get his thoughts together and his head on straight. The problem was, he'd made a promise to himself a long time ago, on his knees beneath the American Elm tree his wife had loved so much. A promise to never love as deeply as he had loved her. To never again open himself up to the kind of heartache that seemed to follow his every footstep in life. And yet somehow he'd managed to do exactly what he'd set out not to do.

He hadn't meant for this to happen; to let them in, this man and his sons. They had wormed their way into Bobby's life and wrapped themselves around his heart not unlike the Virginia Creeper vines that were snaking their way up that Elm. They would dig their tendrils into his skin and bones until there came a time when he would no longer be able to cut himself free of them.

Bobby could admit now that that time may have already come and gone, because try as he might, he could not imagine his life without them. And didn't that just burn his ass nine ways from Sunday? He was just going to have to make a concerted effort to curtail his time with that bunch. Step back. Don't let himself get so involved. Reduce the risk of his heart getting broken, because it was bound to happen. Sooner or later one of them would get hurt, or worse, killed, and what would he do then?

Summer 1999

Bobby had lasted five months without being sucked back into the Winchesters' world. It hadn't been easy, either. Trying to avoid John meant actually keeping tabs on the man, and that, Bobby found out, was a lot like stalking.

Making sure he was out of town whenever the Winchesters ventured his direction was one thing, but it had become increasingly more difficult to ignore the telephone calls and voicemails – especially the ones left by the boys. By the time June had rolled around, Bobby was itching for a fix, so when he received a call from an unlisted number late one evening, it took all his strength not to pick it up. And he was proud of himself.

He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a tall glass of the sun tea he'd set out that morning; his first of the season. He stirred a fair amount of sugar into the glass and gave it a test sip, nodding his head back and forth as he considered it. Wasn't as good as the sweet tea from down south, but it was better than anything he'd had in months, and it tasted like summer.

He was making his way to the front porch when the phone rang again. Same unlisted number.

Bobby frowned. He looked from the phone in his hand to the tea in his other and weighed his decision. Tea it was. The phone stopped ringing, and he was about to slide it into his pocket when it rang again.

"For the love of Pete," he exclaimed into the receiver. "People've got lives, ya know?"

"Bobby?"

The voice on the other end of the line gave Bobby pause. It had literally been years since he'd heard Dean sound so young and it made his heart leap up into his throat.

"What happened? Where's your daddy?"

"Down the hall, I think. Talkin' to the doctor."

"Is it…is it Sam?"

"Nosir." Dean's voice got impossibly smaller.

Bobby scratched his head in confusion, "Well then, who –"

"It's me."

"You?" Bobby sank down onto the top step of his front porch, setting his tea down beside him. He removed his cap and used the back of his hand to wipe away the sweat; damn kid was making him sweat for cryin' out loud.

"Broke my leg."

"What'dya mean you broke your leg?! Stop speaking in partial sentences and tell me what the hell is going on."

Dean's end of the line became a muffled blend of chaos, and Bobby strained to separate and make sense of what he was hearing until finally, the line cleared. "Hey Uncle Bobby. Ow! Dammit Dean, don't hit me."

Bobby heard a quick succession of thumps that could only be Sam's retaliation against his older brother's abuse.

"Hey," Sam echoed. "Sorry about that."

"Sam," Bobby greeted in that slow deep manner he reserved for the boys. It had been so long since hearing either of their voices that for a split second Bobby was regretting his decision to distance himself, but then he remembered why the phone call. "What happened?"

"He didn't _break_ break it, Bobby. Don't let him fool ya. He's just feelin' sorry for himself on account of the crutches."

"Damn straight the crutches," Dean hollered in the background. "Tell him how long I've gotta –"

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up. I'm talkin' to Bobby. Sorry Bobby," he said, lowering his voice apologetically.

"If you two girls are done bickering," Bobby chided impatiently. "Would somebody please tell me what's goin' on?"

"Dean got tossed down some stairs, twisted his ankle real bad and has a hairline fracture on his fibula."

"It's my leg," Dean argued in the near distance.

"Your fibula _is_ part of your leg, Dean." Through the phone, Bobby could practically hear Sam roll his eyes at his brother. "Who's telling this story anyway? Sit down before Dad catches you outta bed. Anyway," Sam said, turning his attention back to Bobby. "I heard the doc say they were gonna put Dean in some kind of boot. He's gonna have to use crutches and stay off of it, which is why he's being such a baby."

Another loud bang sounded through Bobby's cordless and he could only imagine what Dean had thrown at his brother to make that kind of commotion.

"Maybe you ought to quit antagonizing your brother," Bobby suggested when Sam came back on the line again.

"Yeah, maybe," Sam grinned. _That_ Bobby could hear – clear as a bell – and his whole heart surged with wanting to see them both. The line went quiet for a moment, and Bobby listened. He could feel the unasked question forming on Sam's lips.

Bobby sighed.

"What time should I expect ya?"

"Really?" Sam asked, sounding hopeful.

"Yeah, really," Bobby conceded, half-heartedly.

"Are you –" Sam stopped. Bobby listened to the phone go real quiet once more. When Sam spoke again, his voice was muffled and quiet, like he might have wrapped his hand around the receiver to shield his words from prying ears. "Are you still mad at Dad?" Sam asked cautiously.

"Who told you that?"

"Bobby," Sam replied knowingly.

"Look, Sam. You're not a pipsqueak anymore. You're old enough to recognize that people don't always see eye to eye."

"Yessir."

"Doesn't mean I don't care about ya. Just means I needed some space is all. You can understand that, right?"

"It's just…five months is a long time," Sam answered meekly.

"Y'all keepin' track?"

"Just me…and Dean. Me mostly."

"Aww, kiddo." Bobby's lungs constricted in his chest. Little squirt was gonna make his eyes leak if he kept that up. "You boys come on home. I'll be here, waitin' for ya."

"Thanks Bobby."

-O-o-o-O-

Bobby stepped out of the garage when he heard the tell-tale rumble of John's Chevy Impala coming up the road. He wiped the grease from his hands with a shop towel and jammed it into his back pocket before meeting the Winchesters at the top of the drive.

Sam was the first to jump out of the car, although 'jump' wasn't exactly the correct term. Unfolded was more accurate, because when he stepped out into the open, Bobby was able to see that the boy's legs had grown long and coltish over the last few months. He stretched up (and up) and then waved excitedly, loping around the car to crash into Bobby; wrapping long, skinny arms around the man and squeezing with all his might.

"Good grief you got tall," Bobby exclaimed. He leaned back to take the kid in and was surprised to find that he met Sam eye-to-eye. "What are you, sixteen now? Get your license yet?"

"No," Sam's grin turned down. "Neither one of them will let me practice driving. Jerks."

"Don't worry." Bobby shot him a quick wink. "We'll get ya in a car this weekend sometime."

Sam's face lit up and he grinned. "Thanks Uncle Bobby."

Bobby clapped a hand across Sam's back and squeezed his shoulder, turning him back toward the car. "Show me this cripple."

"Shut up," Dean growled from the front passenger seat where he was struggling to free his hefty, plastic-encased leg. "Ain't a cripple. I'm just fine."

"Really?" Bobby asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Wanna race?"

Dean could only glare darkly in return.

Sam nudged Bobby and gave him a small cock-eyed smile before going to help his brother.

"Stop. Go help Dad with the gear or somethin'," Dean commanded, shooing Sam away. "He's been such a pest since all of this," Dean said to Bobby after his brother had moved out of earshot.

"S'just cuz he's worried about you."

"But I'm fine." Dean seemed determined to repeat that until everyone believed it – even himself. Bobby gave him an approving grin and offered his hand to help Dean out of the car.

-O-o-o-O-

John found himself a quiet corner on Bobby's front porch to sit; a spot no one tended to look when they were coming and going from the house. He hadn't felt like himself since he'd turned the car towards Sioux Falls, and arriving at Singer's had only increased his uneasiness. It was a kind of unexplained restlessness with more than a little guilt thrown in over Dean's injury.

Haunted by the memory of his oldest son lying unmoving on the floor, John was having a hard time even looking at Dean. Equally, he'd been unable to meet Sam's eyes for fear of seeing the boy's hard, accusing glare.

Sam was right to blame John. Watching Dean get thrown head-over-heels down the stairs had been a slow motion nightmare for John. Each collision, accompanied by a sickening smack of body to wood, had turned John's stomach, and when Dean careened headfirst into the wall and slumped to the floor unmoving, John had nearly lost his lunch altogether. What he failed to do was to act.

Instead, it had been Sam who had rushed to Dean's side, protecting his brother from the spray of salt from John's gun, hauling Dean to his feet and carrying him to safety. It had been Sam who had seen to Dean's injuries and pronounced them not treatable by their own skilled hands. It had been Sam who had stood up for Dean when John had berated his oldest son for putting himself in danger and not meeting the expectations of the job.

"If you weren't so busy cussing Dean out for your own mistake," Sam had yelled angrily, coming to stand nose to nose with John, "you might actually be doing something to help him!"

The problem was Sam hadn't been wrong. It _was_ John's fault, all of it. Hell, everything that had happened to his little family the past sixteen years had been his fault. Every broken bone, every bruised rib, every missed school play, every hurtful word had all come on account of his inability to let go and move on. And yet every time he made an attempt at a healthy life decision, John would see her face and be swept back up into the obsession that had become 'life'. It was just too bad he had to burden his sons with the same. It wasn't just about finding the thing that did this to his family, it was about making sure it never happened again. Being ready.

John had been preparing his boys for battle their entire lives, even before they knew what it was they were preparing for. It was important. Necessary. Training meant survival, and if staying alive equaled missing out on a 'normal life'…well, so be it. That was a fair trade in John's book.

This was one of those things that he and Bobby butted heads on. Truth be told, it was part of the reason John had fought against coming here after Dean's accident. But Sam, like always, was stubborn and persuasive, so Sioux Falls it was.

Bobby, for all his good intentions, had a habit of being a bad influence on John's boys – especially Sam. At Bobby's, they found stability and comfort; things that explicitly went against John's protocol. With stability came complacency and a lack of motivation to train and keep up the constant vigilance that was needed in their world.

And comfort? They were boys – men really – they didn't need to be coddled and spoiled with the comforts of home. They were a tight unit; a family; knowing that your brother-in-arms had your back was all the comfort they would ever need.

But Bobby insisted they needed more. He saw to it that they had beds of their own, in a bedroom with clothes and dressers for crying out loud. He made sure there was always chocolate milk on hand for Sam. And where the hell he had managed to dig up fresh pie on such short notice, John would never know, but it was always there, just waiting for Dean to cut into it.

It was worse when John was gone. He'd come back after a long hunt to find out that, 'no, they hadn't done their target practice'. Instead they'd played catch or some God-awful game that 'normal' kids played, or Bobby had taken them fishing which was why Dean's fair skin was three shades too pink and red-hot to the touch. And don't get John started on Bobby's definition of 'hunting'. They'd gone into the woods and instead of coming back with a buck, they paraded in proudly with a damned live rabbit that Sam had snared and _no one_ was willing to eat.

"I am _not_ eating Thumper," Dean had stated, wrinkling his nose.

Bobby had let them keep the critter as a pet, until his dog got a bit over zealous and ate the damned thing himself; wooden cage and all.

John always liked that dog.

It was for all these reasons that Bobby was out with Sam now. In the salvage yard, Bobby's Chevelle pulled slowly around the corner, coming much too close to a stack of scrap vehicles. He knew it was Sam behind the wheel, and he closed his eyes tight and held his breath, waiting for the crash that never came. The car rocked to a short stop in front of the house, and Sammy climbed out from behind the wheel grinning from ear to ear. Bobby too was smiling. He clapped the boy on the back, bringing him in for a one-armed hug as they walked towards the house.

"Did you see, Dad?" Sam asked excitedly, taking the porch steps three at a time.

"I saw," John answered. "Looks like you could use some more practice."

John regretted the comment the moment it was out of his mouth. He watched his son's shoulders fall, inches dropping off the boy's height as he bowed his head and folded in on himself. Instead of coming to tell John all about the experience, Sam excused himself to go find his brother. John hadn't meant for it to come out that way. His intention had been to encourage the sixteen-year-old, maybe even offer to set up a defensive driving course to really hone Sam's skills. He'd meant to try and smooth things over between him and Sammy. Add it to his list of failures.

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Would it kill you to tell the kid 'good job' every now and then?"

"It might," John responded cynically.

There was a long moment of silence in which John waited for Bobby to make a comment, but to his surprise, the words never came. Instead, Bobby just stood there, leaning against the corner post with his arms crossed over his chest in judgment. John shifted uncomfortably under Bobby's scrutiny. He knew that he'd lost his friend's favorable opinion in recent months; at least since Orlando, maybe even before that, but Bobby had always seemed to know exactly how far he could overstep into John's business. Always knew how much to say without saying too much, and to John's knowledge, had never said a bad word against him. All of that meant something to John.

"So," Bobby led off, breaking the silence. "I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say you've got a lead on another job."

"What gave me away?" John asked. That had been the last thing he'd expected Bobby to say, and he was genuinely surprised.

"Honestly?" Bobby frowned at him, quirking an eyebrow up underneath the brim of his cap, and then he gestured at the mess of maps and atlases that were spread out around John on the porch floor.

"Oh. Well yeah." John reached down and took hold of a large atlas, pulling it up into his lap, saying, "There may be something down in the Colorado Springs area, but…"

He let his fingertip trace over the route from Sioux Falls into Colorado, and chewed on his lower lip, thinking.

"But what? What's holding you back?"

"What else? Dean." John drew his eyes up slowly, meeting Bobby's gaze. It was clear that they were already on the same page. "It's not like I can take him along with me."

"No." Bobby shook his head. "You can't take him with you. And he's gonna be a shit about it too."

John sighed, puffing a breath out between pursed lips. "Yeah, I know."

"It's fine if you want him to stay here," Bobby offered.

John nodded; his head bobbing slowly as he considered the option. It wasn't what he wanted at all. In fact, it was a terrible idea, and yet he found himself agreeing. "Thanks Bobby."

May 2001

"Dean says we're leaving?"

"Yup," John answered. He didn't look up from his notes on the table. Didn't need to. He knew very well that Sam was standing at his side with his arms crossed over his chest, burning holes into John's head with his eyes full of fury. That seemed to be Sam's go-to setting as of late, but of course John didn't help matters much. "That gonna be a problem?"

"Hell yes that's a problem! In case it's escaped your notice, I graduate next week. From high school, Dad. That's kind of a big friggin' deal."

"Don't take that tone with me, Sam. We've got a job to do. You're little school thing's gonna have to wait."

"My little schoo – I don't believe you! You can't do this to me. Not this time. I'm not going," Sam concluded abruptly with an incredulous shake of his head. He turned away from his father and stormed from the room, slamming the screen door behind him as he left the extended stay motel room.

It wasn't until the echo of the wood on wood smack worked its way around the room, that John realized what Sam had said. His head whipped around just in time to catch sight of Sam's retreating form stalking across the parking lot of the motel. John pushed back from the table, knocking his chair over in the process and followed his son outside.

"Get your ass back here," John commanded.

In response, and to John's utter disbelief, Sam raised his hand high in the air and flew his middle finger. John growled and picked up speed, breaking out into a jog to catch up.

"Sammy! Goddammit, stop!"

"No!" Sam spun around, but kept moving, circling away from his father, always keeping a fair distance between them. "You don't seem to understand how _important_ this is for me. That or you don't care. Either way, I've had it. I am so fed up with your crap. You make these decisions – all the time – without ever asking me or Dean what we want."

"Why are you dragging Dean into this? He's got nothing to do with it, but hey, if you've got a problem with me, fine. Come back inside and we'll talk."

"Talk?!"

Sam stopped in his tracks; his arms sweeping out in a wide, exaggerated challenge as he stepped in place like a nervous colt trying to decide whether to bolt or charge.

"When's the last time we actually talked, Dad? About anything? You don't talk to us. You just order us around and expect us to obey without question, but dammit, _I've_ got questions!"

"We haven't got time for all that, Sam."

"You _never_ have time. Fine. Go!" Sam shouted, throwing his hands out and shooing his father away. "I'm not stopping you, but I'm sure as _Hell_ not going with you either."

"You ungrateful little punk," John ground out, stepping into Sam's space. "I feed you, clothe you, and this is how you repay me?"

"That's your job! God! Don't you understand that? I'm your kid! I'm not some soldier. I am never going to be a soldier. I am your son and all I want – all I've _ever_ wanted is for you to just _be_ my dad; for us to be a real family. Not this…pathetic imitation."

John blanched, but before he could defend against the attack, Sam reloaded; taking a deep breath. "You care more about finding the next hunt –the next thing to kill – than you do what's going on with me. So go, if that's what you gotta do, but I'm staying."

"You want me to just leave you here, is that it?"

"No. God!" Sam tugged at his hair in exasperation. "No. I want you to stay."

Sam's voice broke; his mouth twisting and John could see his son literally bite back on his words. They stood there for a moment, breathing hard and considering each other, until Sam sagged tiredly. "But you won't. Will you?" Sam asked searching John's face with hazel eyes lit up bright green with unshed tears.

How could John look at those eyes and not be affected? He reached out to Sam, wanting to wipe away the last five minutes as easily as he could wipe away his son's tears.

"Forget it," Sam said, brushing John's hands away. He shook his head and blinked away the tears. "I should've known better."

Sam turned and walked away yet again, steering toward the corner of the building where Dean was suddenly standing with his arms folded over his chest. How long had he been there, John wondered. How much had he seen and heard?

With his shoulders slumped and his head bent low, Sam approached Dean slowly, looking to his brother for absolution. Dean straightened up, his eyes meeting John's briefly before looking at Sam. No words were exchanged; just a silent look, and then Dean stepped to the side, letting Sam pass around the corner and out of sight.

Dean leaned back against the side of the building, propping a foot on the brittle wood siding and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, looking as casual as possible.

"Why didn't you stop him?" John asked, moving briskly toward his son. "He's going to run, you know."

"Then stop chasing him away." Dean pushed off of the building and passed his father, going back towards their room. "By the way," Dean tossed over his shoulder as he walked away. "I talked to Bobby. He doesn't need us after all. Got somebody else lined up to take care of that job."

Bobby didn't need them anymore? John looked back at the corner around which Sam had just disappeared, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"How convenient," he muttered.

John wasn't oblivious – no matter what Sam believed. He'd seen the two of them, his son and his closest friend, huddled together with their heads bent low, plotting and planning when they thought no one was watching. What'd they been orchestrating? Sam's current rebellion? Well, t'Hell with that. Sam was _his_ son. And friend or no, John would not tolerate Bobby intervening on Sam's behalf whenever the kid wasn't getting his way. John was gonna have to have a _talk_ with his friend; teach him the meaning of 'butt the Hell out'…or else.

Fuelled by an anger that he knew deep down was irrational, John pulled the phone from his pocket and dialed the 605 area code. He tamped his foot in the loose gravel, waiting impatiently for the line to connect, and when it did, he abruptly cut off Bobby's standard 'Yeah?' greeting. "Why don't you just butt out, Singer?"

"Pardon me?"

"You heard me. You've got some nerve, sittin' there in your," John waved a hand, "_command center_, pullin' strings to make sure the kid gets his way."

"Am I supposed to have a clue what you're talkin' about, Winchester?"

"Sam. And his little rebellion. You're not helpin', you know."

"What'd I –"

"I'm not blind," John interrupted again. "No matter what you or Sam would like to believe."

Bobby sighed on the other end and John could practically see the man roll his eyes which only spurred John on further.

"I see the two of you whisperin' and plannin'. So, what? You had to go call someone else just cuz Sam pitched a bitch about some damn ceremony that don't _mean_ nothing."

"What are you…wait, is this about that job?"

"Hell yeah, it's about the job."

"I didn't call no one, you paranoid sonuvabitch. Thompson called me. He and Rick are half an hour out from that job. Hell, I _thought _I was doin' you a favor. What's the use of sendin' you halfway across the damn country if they're already there? S'got nothin' to do with Sam. But seein' as how you brought the subject up, would it kill ya to listen to the kid once in a while, to put his needs first now and again? You're his _father_ not his Goddamn CO. Most folks are proud when their kids graduate."

"Now you listen here…" but John was talking to a dial tone and he almost threw his phone in frustration. Most frustrating of all? In a perfect world Bobby would be right; Sam would be right; and he'd be an ass. But it wasn't a perfect world; it was dark and dangerous and what Sam wanted, he couldn't have. John turned abruptly and punched the wood siding where Dean had been leaning not so long ago. Things were spinning out of control and John didn't know how to fix it. It seemed that no matter how much he tightened his grip, Sam was inevitably going to slip through his fingers.


	5. Part Five

September 2001

"That's all you got? What the Hell good does that do me?"

Bobby had been pacing the floor for a good twenty minutes while he waited on the phone for his contact to dig up the information he needed from County Records. If he kept it up much longer, he'd have a path worn into the fifty-year-old linoleum. He stopped and leaned against the counter, blowing out a sigh of exasperation, and that's when he heard it: the soft throaty rumble of a certain V8 as it approached from the south.

"Mac, I gotta go. Why don't you call me back when you got something substantial for me, okay?"

Bobby set the phone down into its cradle and then pushed the curtains aside to look out the kitchen window. Sure enough, he could see the tail end of the Winchesters' trademark black Impala parked in his drive. He checked the date on his watch and frowned. He wasn't expecting John and the boys for another two weeks, and although it wasn't unheard of for John Winchester to come crawling out of the woodwork without proper notice, it was a bit of a surprise. He was even more shocked to hear a quiet knock on the door. Bobby looked out the window again double-checking his drive, and then made his way through the house.

"We're knocking now?" Bobby asked as he pulled the front door open, "Since when do we knock?"

Dean Winchester stood on Bobby's porch with a duffle thrown over one shoulder and his hands stuffed down deep into his pockets, but didn't answer.

Bobby leaned out the door, looking both directions, frowning deeper when he realized Dean was alone.

"You're short one vehicle," Bobby teased; the playful smile that was specifically reserved for his boys fully in place. "Don't you Winchesters normally travel in convoy?"

"I'm alone," Dean mumbled; his eyes cast down to where he was kicking at the loose paint on the porch floor. Bobby was set back on his heels by the kid's appearance. Dean was his confident boy; all cocksure attitude and eyes that glimmered with orneriness, but there was nothing of that in the young man in front of him and Bobby quickly dropped the smile to replace it with a look of concern.

"Where's your old man?"

Dean only answer was to offer up a shrug of his shoulders.

"And Sam?"

Dean swallowed hard and shook his head, still not looking up from his worn out boots.

"No? What do you mean, 'No'? Where's Sam?"

Bobby hadn't intended to bark at the boy, but he had and his stomach rolled when the twenty-two year old flinched under the bite of his voice.

"He left," Dean croaked out.

Bobby had never considered that two words could elicit such a response. He was all at once elated and proud, as well as heartbroken.

Sam had left.

"Get in here," Bobby commanded. Reaching out across the threshold, he took Dean by the arm and pulled him into the house, skinning him of the oversized bag, but never relinquishing his hold on Dean's upper arm.

Sam's leaving had been a long time coming. For those in the know, it had been a well-established fact that he was not only planning for college, but had his plans set in stone, so Dean's abrupt announcement came as no surprise to Bobby.

Hell, Sam had been using Bobby's mailbox as his own personal UPS for well over a year; a constant stream of thick manila envelopes stuffed with applications for admission, entire books of essays, recommendation letters from every corner of the country and every possible scrap of evidence selling the fact that 'This young man is a must-have for your University'.

The acceptance letters had been pouring in ever since, followed shortly by a multitude of reward letters for grants and scholarships alike. To Bobby it seemed like the entire world had one day woken up to the bright-shining sun that was Sam Winchester. He proudly collected the letters and filed them into an inconspicuous box where no one – namely John – would think to look. He didn't like going behind his friend's back, but he knew better than most that John would never agree with what Sam was doing; would never support his son's dream of going to college and getting out of the life.

Dean, on the other hand...

January 2001

Mid-January had seen the boys granted 'shore leave' which they happily took at Bobby's while John scooted on up into Minnesota to take care of a quick salt-n-burn. And while Dean had taken the time to catch up with a friend down the road, Bobby and Sam had sat down to do a little accounting.

When Dean returned an hour later, proudly carrying two of Mrs. Thomas's famous pies, he pulled up short in the kitchen doorway.

"What's wrong?" he said, panicking at the sight of Bobby leaned over, comforting his brother.

Bobby whispered something into Sam's ear and patted him on the head before scooting away from the table littered with paperwork.

"I'll give you boys some time. Here, Dean. Better give those over to me before you drop 'em." He took the pie plates from Dean's hands and set them on the stove before making a hasty retreat from the room.

"Sammy?"

Sam looked up from his lap where his hands were trembling and through a watery smile, replied, "I have enough, Dean."

"Enough?" Dean shook his head slowly, not making the connection. He looked from Sam to the table, tilting his head to scan one of the letters and that's when it all clicked into place. "Enough for school?"

"I can go anywhere," Sam nodded fervently, blinking wildly, his white teeth flashing between twin dimples.

Dean was on him in a flash, pulling Sam up out of his chair and crushing the younger man to his chest.

"I knew you'd pull it off, Sammy," Dean laughed, clasping Sam's face in both hands, before pulling him back in for a second hug. "Wait 'til we tell Dad. He's gonna be so –"

"No." Sam pressed his brother away, his eyes wide and imploring. "Dean, you can't tell Dad. Please," Sam pleaded. "He'll never let me go."

"What are you talking about? Of course he will and he'll be just as proud of you as I am. It's college, man. That's a _big_ deal. Why _wouldn't_ he let you go?"

"It's not just school, Dean. It's me…getting out." Sam paused, seeing the realization dawn on his brother; giving Dean a moment to let it truly soak in before he continued on. "You had to know that, right? It's my chance at normal and I'm gonna take it. I can't let Dad put a stop to it before I even get going."

Dean nodded slowly, trying so hard to smile at that, but he could feel the falseness of it stretch tight across his face and knew that he was failing to hide the hurt that was knotted in his chest. "I just kinda forgot, in all the excitement, this means you're leavin' me," he admitted.

Sam's face fell and his long body folded in down into his chair; his elbows coming to rest on his knees. "You could come with me," Sam offered quietly after a moment.

"Sure," Dean drawled. "You think I could major in picking up chicks? I'd make the Dean's list for sure."

"Dean—"

Dean snapped his fingers and pointed at his brother. "Hey, maybe I could minor in werewolf lore or credit card fraud?" he smiled the fake, tight smile he normally reserved for cops, security guards and school principals. "Least we know I'd drink those frat house douches under the table, right Sammy?"

He met his brother's eyes defiantly and the sadness he saw in Sam's expression had him turning away and rubbing the back of his neck. A light laugh bubbled up in his chest and then settled into a shaky sigh. "It's okay," he said quietly, "I wouldn't fit in real well on campus anyway. I'd stick out like Joe Cool. Can't be stealing the spotlight from my baby brother, Mr. College Professor, now can I?"

"Dean –"

"We need to celebrate," Dean announced, clapping his hands together and moving around the kitchen.

"Dean –"

"Come on Sammy," he smiled, "I've got pie from Gert; our favorite."

"Dean –"

"Sam, stop." He squatted down in front of his brother, resting his hands on the tops of Sam's arms, squeezing gently. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your news with my epic sarcasm. College…it's _your_ thing Sammy, and it's great. It's _really_ great and I am so proud of you, man. Please. Let's just…we'll cut into this pie and we'll do this up right, okay?"

"Okay, Dean," Sam nodded, smiling tightly through glassy eyes.

September 2001

Bobby steered Dean into the library and directly to the couch. Dean didn't fight him off when Bobby pressed him down onto the faded red cushions and that should have been Bobby's first clue that something was really wrong.

Grabbing a desk chair for himself, Bobby spun it around into position and took a seat in front of Dean, finally getting a good look at the kid whose eyes were outlined in the tell-tale bluish-black of exhaustion and filled with a blend of pain and anger and misery. Bobby couldn't help but rock back in his chair; shocked at the sight.

"You look like Hell, kid. When's the last time you slept?"

Dean didn't answer. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on knees that bounced; his left hand working over the silver band he wore on his right ring finger, never stopping. It was as if he stopped moving, he might just fall over into a week-long sleep and by the looks of him that was very plausible.

"…Ate?"

Dean shook his head and cast his eyes away from Bobby to stare long and hard at the worn out floral pattern of the floor rug.

"How 'bout your old man?"

"Don't know," Dean finally answered. "Doubt it."

"Peachy," Bobby groused. "So…he did it, huh? Sam's off to school?

Dean fell back into silence, his throat working overtime and his silence was really nagging at Bobby's instincts, warning: 'This is _all_ kinds of wrong.'

"So why do you look like someone kicked your puppy? It's what he wanted. What we wanted for him. This is a _good_ thing, isn't it?"

"Is it?" Dean asked, his voice catching in his throat. "I thought it was, but now…I'm not sure."

"Since when?" Bobby scooted to the edge of his chair, closing the distance between him and Dean and placing his hands over Dean's to still the movement. "Dean, what the Hell happened?"

"They got into it."

"Of course they did," Bobby replied.

It was no secret that John and Sam had 'issues'. Nor did they go out of their way to hide their knock-down, drag-outs. In fact, it hadn't been too long ago that Bobby had needed to purchase a plaster repair kit to patch-up the gaping hole Sam's fist had made in the boys' bedroom wall after one of their more 'colorful' arguments.

"They 'get into it' all the time," Bobby added.

The dark and distraught look he received from Dean spelled it all out loud and clear: World War III in the Winchester family with severe casualties.

"That bad, huh?"

August 2001

John lowered his chin and tilted his ear towards his youngest son, acting as though he'd been unable to hear Sam's snide comment. All John had done was instruct his boys to get their gear loaded up. He hadn't barked at them or even raised his voice, so he'd been completely unprepared to receive the flippant remark from his youngest.

"I beg your pardon?"

It was probably the wrong approach to take with Sam; things had been so tense between them all that summer, but John wasn't a pushover and he'd be damned if he was gonna let Sam shirk out on his duties just because he was 'in a mood'. The kid was always in a mood these days. You couldn't say a word or look at him sideways without getting a huff of exasperation or a scathing look from him. Dean called that look Sammy's bitchface and said it was just his hormones, but John was pretty sure the kid went through puberty a long time ago. Hell, if Dean's exaggerated stories were anything to go by, his kid-brother had lost his virginity two years ago, reminding John that he had yet to have the 'how to avoid jungle rot' discussion with his youngest. He supposed Dean had probably already taken care of that. Dean took care of most things where Sam was concerned.

Which probably explained why as soon as Sam had raised his voice, Dean had popped up in the kitchen doorway. John didn't need to look that direction to see him; just knew his son well enough to know that Dean would immediately volunteer to be the silent referee in Round 223 of Winchester vs Winchester, even if he never promised to be an unbiased referee. John wasn't stupid. He knew if it came down to a toss-up, Dean would choose Sammy over his own father. Hell, hadn't he raised Dean to do as much? 'Protect your brother, Dean. Look out for Sammy.' John couldn't fault him for that instinct; it had been ingrained in Dean since age four. But something was off, because Dean wasn't circling in to protect his brother like normal, wasn't stepping in to break up the oncoming fight. He was just standing in the doorway, frozen to his spot, and holding his breath by the sound of it. John hazarded a glance in Dean's direction and found him pale as a ghost and staring hard at his brother.

"I don't think I heard you right," John clarified, turning his eyes back on Sam. "Mind repeating that?"

"I didn't stutter," Sam answered hotly under his breath. "I said I'm not going with you."

"And just why'n the Hell not?" It sounded like the same argument they'd had in May, but somehow this felt very different to John and it made his stomach clench in some emotion that he couldn't yet name.

"Because I'm leaving, Dad."

"What?"

Shock, anger, fear, betrayal; John spun around, nailing Dean down with a scathing look of his own. "Did you know about this?"

Dean's breath caught in his chest. He opened his mouth, but his words seemed to have become lodged in his throat and he unwittingly took a step back, which gave John all the answers he needed.

"You knew and you didn't bother to say anything to me? What the Hell is going on here?" John asked, his eyes bouncing back and forth between his two boys. "Are we all just keeping secrets from each other now?"

Dean ducked his head, but Sam raised his chin in defiance; again giving John his answer.

"Oh," John said with a nod. He swallowed down the lump of truth and nodded again, his nose wrinkling in disgust. "I see. We're just keeping secrets from me then, is that it?"

"We wouldn't have to keep secrets from you," Sam said, "if we thought for one minute that you'd support me in this."

_We?_

"Is that what you think?" John asked, and then turned his eyes on Dean. "Is that what you _both_ think? That I don't support you?"

"No," Dean quickly answered, stepping away from the door. He scowled at his brother, sending him what was clearly a signal to shut his trap. Not that it'd work. "Dad that's not –"

"So," John interrupted, turning away from Dean. "Where exactly is it that you think you're going."

Sam swallowed hard and straightened his back before answering, and when he did, he spoke clearly and with purpose. "California…to school."

"No." The room spun, and John was barely able to pull in the breath needed to form words. "No way," he rasped, closing his eyes and trying to shake away the instant vertigo. All manner of rational thought and speech left him in that moment; his worst nightmare coming true, and for an instant, John was transported back four years, to the day he'd come back to find that his youngest son had run away. Just like then, John was immediately dizzy with the loss of control.

He had always been a man who felt the need to have a handle on all aspects of the world around him. Wasn't that why he'd taken so quickly to the hunting lifestyle? It had been a lot like going to war. See the bad things, kill the bad things. Train hard, be prepared, and never forget that if it bleeds, you can kill it. But he wasn't prepared for this at all, not even a little bit.

"No," Sam repeated John's word.

John opened his eyes to find Sam standing directly in front of him, hands twitching at his sides, eager for action, eyes wide and mouth gaping in disbelief, and John steeled himself for the fight.

"No?" Sam's eyes narrowed and John saw the muscle of Sam's jaw ripple as he clenched his teeth in anger.

Angry, desperate words boiled up in John, spilling out of him uncontrollably. "What're you gonna do, Sam? Go live in some fantasy world you dreamed up? Get a degree, buy a house, find a wife, have two point five kids," he mocked, ticking the dreams off on his fingers one by one, "and then pretend like there's nothing evil out there killing people? Just quit this life? Leave me and your brother to do it all on our own? What's the matter? Is this life not good enough for you? This war not important?"

"It's not _my_ war! I don't want this, Dad. I've _never_ wanted this." Sam flung his arms out wide in frustration and anger; an action John was quite familiar with since it was one he'd done himself his entire life. Agitated, Sam planted the tow of his boot down hard on the linoleum floor and turned in a complete circle before rounding back on John. "All I ever wanted was for us to be a family; to be normal and happy and safe, but that's _never_ gonna happen. Not like this. Not your way. And you can't keep me here. You can't tell me what to do. Not anymore."

And to emphasize his point, Sam drew up close, stabbing a stiff finger into John's chest and towering darkly over him so that John got a good sense of just how much his son had grown. Sure, Sam wasn't a kid anymore; John would give him that much, but he was still John's kid – his little boy – and John would be damned if he let his own kid wander off alone to the far reaches of the country in pursuit of some pipe dream of 'normal'.

"You're not goin'. Be pissed at me all you want, but you're not goin'." John stepped back and turned, wiping his hands down his front as though he were wiping them clean with the decision.

"Hey! Don't walk away from me, you sonuvabitch," Sam shouted; his outraged voice bringing John back around to a full boil.

"Don't you talk like that to me, Boy!" John bellowed, his deep, booming voice shaking the dust loose from the rafters. "You are sadly mistaken," he growled, shaking his head in disapproval, "if you think that just cuz you're eighteen now, you know what's best."

"Yeah?" Sam stepped up aggressively, once again coming toe-to-toe with and bodily shoving into John. "Well, when it comes to _my_ life," he snarled, "I_ do _know what's best for me. Not you, Dad…me."

"You _don't_ know," John said, fisting his hands in Sam's shirt, pushing him away and pulling him in at the same time. The speed at which their anger grew was frightening; their voices raised, arms tangled and locked, their hands coiled tight and ready to strike out at one another.

All but forgotten on the sidelines, it was this action that made Dean move. Crossing the room quickly, he slid an arm between them, wrapped his brother up tight, hissed 'stop' in Sam's ear, and tried to separate them before thing got completely out of control. But Sam was pissed, and just like John, when Sam was pissed, his brain tended to separate from his motor control.

Acting on the instinct which John had instilled in him, Sam swung out, cracking his brother in the jaw with his elbow. Dean lost his grip and fell, hard, on his ass.

"Dean. I –"

"What the Hell's _wrong_ with you?" John boomed at Sam. He reached down to help his eldest son up off the floor.

"I'm fine, Dad. I'm fine." Dean swatted John's hand away and scrambled to his feet under his own power and chased after his brother who had fled the room when he'd seen Dean lying on the floor clutching his jaw. "Sammy?"

John ran a hand through his hair and took a deep, shuddering breath. After several long minutes and once he had reined in the anger surging through his bloodstream, he turned and slowly made his way down the hall.

At the back of the house was the boys' bedroom and soon enough John found himself standing just shy of the threshold as though it were some invisible barrier that kept him from toeing over that line into his sons' territory. And maybe there was some truth in that. They'd spent eighteen years living in each other's pockets to the point where privacy was no longer a term in their vocabulary. But when living arrangements like this small house could be found, a house in which the boys could have a room to themselves and wouldn't have to share with their father, John did his best to observe the little privacy he could afford them.

Despite the overwhelming urge to march into the bedroom and shake his youngest son until he regained some sense, John found himself standing there, in the doorway, watching and listening to their tension filled silence. There was a strange sense of finality to the scene; Dean, sitting on their shared bed, raking his hands through his short hair, making it stand up more than normal, and Sam, squatting on the floor, angrily stuffing clothes into his duffle.

Sam's long coltish legs jutted up alongside his lean torso and reminded John how young his son really was. Hadn't it been only yesterday that the kid had just started to shed his baby fat?

Sam had been a round faced child with velvety soft curls, a haunting smile and a sweet disposition. He'd been the kind of child who loved to cuddle in his father's lap while John slept and Dean attended 1st grade. He'd been the kind of boy who even into his early teens still gave goodnight kisses before turning in. He was the kind of young man who could comfort and put at ease even the most traumatized victim of the supernatural; who could instantly empathize with anyone. Anyone but John.

It was Dean who finally broke the silence, and in doing so, startled John out of his thoughts.

"Dude, really? What the Hell?"

His voice was surprisingly quiet – imploring rather than berating – and John was stunned to say the least. He knew that Dean had always had a way with Sam, but never imagined that he used Sam's own 'tools of the trade' against him.

"Leave me alone, Dean," Sam grated out between clenched teeth.

"What happened to sticking with the plan, huh? Break it to him gently. We were gonna convince him that this was the right thing for you. What happened to all that?"

"Your plan sucked," Sam grunted. "End of story."

"_Our_ plan didn't suck…you suck, and _that_…is not even yours. Gimme that." Dean snatched his favorite gray hoodie out of Sam's hands before it too could disappear into the bag. "What are you doing, anyway? Come on, Sammy. You're not really gonna leave like this, are you? "

Sam stopped his packing to cast a dark glance up at his brother and then huffed out a breath. "Be honest, Dean. You and I both know he was never gonna agree to this. We were never gonna convince him it was a good idea, so why even try?"

"Because," Dean argued. "Because your way ends with you running away again and I...I mean, dammit Sam, our family…we're hanging by a thread as it is and you gotta go throw the hissy fit of the century?"

"This isn't my fault, Dean." Sam angrily crammed a pair of jeans down into the last available space in the duffle. "I can't ever reason with him."

"You didn't even try," Dean accused. "You just came at him with that self-righteous chip on your shoulder and expected him to give in. It doesn't work that way, Sam. If you can't just –"

"Don't lecture me about self-righteous." Sam tossed his bag aside and stood, turning to face his brother for the first time since knocking him down in the kitchen. "Eighty percent of Dad's personality is self-righteousness. It's always been his way or the highway. Can't have our own lives or make our own decisions," Sam stabbed a finger down at his brother, physically marking out the points of his argument. "Cuz if it doesn't fit into his way of thinking, then it doesn't exist. All there is in this life is hunting and following orders and monster guts all over my jeans and I am _so_ sick of it. But if _you_ wanna play PFC to his General for the rest of your life, then by all means. You always were real good at followin' Daddy's orders."

"Don't try to make this about me. I'm not the one who went in itching for a fight. Dad reacted bad cuz you handled it bad from the jump."

"Yeah, it's all _my_ fault. I'm the asshole." Sam threw his hands up in exasperation. "That's fine, Dean. Stick up for him. Always did take his side, anyway."

"Take his side?" Dean sputtered in disbelief. "Screw you, Sam. I have _always_ had your back. _Always_. When you were a kid and didn't wanna eat Spagettios? Fine, take my Fruit Loops. Got a bully breathing down your neck? Lemme at'em."

"What'd you do, keep a record?"

"Nonono." Dean held up a hand, effectively shutting Sam up. "_You_ wanted to go to summer school, remember?" Dean paused, looking smug as he let that statement sink in. "That's right. You wanted summer school and I made that happen. Me. My whole life, all I've _ever_ done is look out for you."

"Well, now you won't have to. Nice to know how you _really_ feel." Sam grabbed his duffle up and slung it over his shoulder; blue jeans flopping precariously out of the unzipped opening.

"Jesus, it's not even like that. Sam stop," Dean grabbed his brother at the elbow, and from out in the hall, John saw Sam tense up as though he was about to turn and lay Dean out. Dean must have seen it as well, because he immediately eased up, letting go of Sam's arm and raising his hands in an open gesture. "I don't do it because I have to. I look out for you cuz you're my little brother and all I want is for you to be happy. I kept my mouth shut, didn't I? When I found out what you and Bobby were up to? Hell, I celebrated with you when you got in. Even though it fuckin' _killed_ me. So yeah, you're leaving. Terrific. You get to go live your college dream. That's great. Just don't forget that you're not just running away from Dad; you're running away from me too."

"Sam's not running anywhere." John stepped into the doorway, blocking Sam's escape with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

September 2001

Dean awoke with a start. He sat in the darkened room trying to get his bearings and slow his racing heart. He felt as though his head was still swimming from whatever hellish nightmare he'd been having, and he couldn't shake off the feeling that he needed to retch over the side of his bed. And then as if someone threw a switch, it all came rushing back to him and he knew, it hadn't been a nightmare at all. It was worse.

The very real memory of his family tearing apart at the seams pulled Dean violently from his dream state. The scene played itself out in his mind: The showdown he'd been expecting; the confrontation he'd secretly dreaded—his dad and Sammy, standing toe-to-toe in the center of the room, staring daggers at one another; the room filled with a tension that popped and sizzled in Dean's ears. This scenario had been Dean's nightmare for years: because his brother was always gonna leave, his dad was always gonna blow a gasket, and there had never been anything Dean could do to stop it.

Watching them, he felt trapped; unmoving like a deer in the headlights, with his family as the Mack truck about to run him down. He considered slipping out of the room, hoping to go unnoticed. Sure that would make him a coward, but at that point, Dean was willing to accept cowardice, rather than watch his family – however dysfunctional they might be – dissolve into bitterness and anger.

But then his moment for escape had gone. He hadn't moved fast enough and it was too late. His father had suddenly become very aware of his proximity and had turned eyes full of betrayal upon him.

Even now, sitting in his bedroom at Bobby's house, Dean could still see his father's eyes, filled with hurt and anger…and fear. Even now, he could still hear his father's biting accusation ringing in his ears. "You knew and you didn't bother to tell me!"

Except no, this wasn't a memory. It was happening now. The booming voice of his father rose up through the floorboards and shook Dean completely awake. He jumped from the bed and hit the floor running, his bare feet absorbing the cold from the hardwood floor as he scrambled out of the room and thundered down the hallway.

He took the last few stairs in one giant leap; his feet moving before they hit the ground. Seconds later, he was sliding into the library. But his appearance in the room didn't seem to dissuade the full-blown argument within.

Bobby stood with his arms crossed stiffly over his chest. He shook his head and in taking a deep breath, rolled his eyes. It was a look that Dean recognized on him. Exasperation. Although, normally it was followed by a stern, yet fond, 'idjit'.

"Hell no, I didn't tell you! Do I look like I was born yesterday? The boy needed someone to confide in, John. That's all."

"And that someone just _had_ to be you?"

John paced the floor; his hands clenching and unclenching, knuckles cracking in time with each step. He glanced up and for the first time in two days, saw Dean. His eyes narrowed and beneath that heated gaze, Dean ducked his head and took a step back into the wall. For the second time in a week, Dean found himself a bystander in a fight that wasn't his, and all he could do was watch.

"You say it like it's the worst thing in the world," Bobby answered, "Sam confiding in me."

"He should have come to me, dammit. I'm his father."

"Oh right. So you could squash his dreams? The kid's got a right to live his life the way he wants, John."

John stopped his pacing to glower darkly at the other hunter. He jabbed a thick finger in Bobby's direction, saying, "_This_ life only has one exit strategy, and you of all people should know better."

Dean swallowed hard against the lump that was quickly building in his throat. Thinking about his brother – out there in the world with no one to back him up – nearly brought Dean to pacing his own groove into the floor boards.

"So what? You'd rather have him here, risking life and limb –"

"Yes."

"Even if that means he'll never be happy."

"Yes."

"He is miserable, you know? He'll _be_ miserable the rest of his life – however short that is, cuz life expectancy for a hunter isn't but twenty years, if you're _real_ lucky."

"He'd be here with me. Where I could _protect_ him."

"Right, because you've done such a bang-up job so far."

"You sonuva–"

"Dad, stop."

Dean was across the room and standing in front of his father before John could even get the words out. He pushed at John's chest, guiding him back away from the punch John was about to throw. It took just a moment of ducking into John's line of sight to get his father to finally look at him, but when John did, the tension seemed to ease from his body if ever so slightly. And behind them, Bobby also seemed to back down from his instinctive defensive stance.

"M'okay," John muttered quietly to Dean. And then to Bobby, in an equally quiet, but much more dangerous tone, "You've got some fuckin' nerve, man. You judging me. That is a joke, if I ever heard one."

John laughed, but it was the least humorous thing Dean had ever heard and it made him take a step back from his father and glance warily between the two men. There was so much anger in their eyes; something so akin to animosity that it forced the air from Dean's lungs. He realized that he was in the worst possible position, caught right in between two men – two hunters – and he took another careful step back, putting more distance between himself and the danger brewing in front of him.

Whatever had come between his father and Bobby, this dark weight that filled the room, wasn't anything like the familial affection Dean had come to expect of them. He'd always kind of viewed the two men as brothers – like he and Sam. Sure, they didn't always agree; butted heads like two bucks during the rut, but that's what brothers did, right? They fought and yelled, but came back together in the end and always – _always_ – cared about each other. Care was the furthest thing removed from what Dean was seeing now.

"Someone's gotta tell you," Bobby argued. "I mean it's pretty obvious that you've got your head so far up the ass of this hunting business – this revenge – that you don't know up from down. One of these days, John, someone's gonna get hurt. And it's gonna be more than just a broken leg."

Dean's eyes dropped to the floor and he felt the blood drain from his face. Bobby was talking about him. The broken leg Dean had sustained two years prior had left him feeling guilty and insecure in his place; waiting for the day when his dad would decide that he'd be better off without Dean at his side. He could feel it sometimes, in the way that his father looked at him. Like he was a liability.

"Think about it, John. Just for a minute." Bobby came closer. His hands extended low and open in a placating gesture, asking John to listen to reason. "You've got smart boys. They could do anything, _be_ anything, but instead you're sentencing them to _this_. Being a hunter…it's not a life. It's a pitiful existence of blood and bone and death and you can't possibly want that for your kids."

John turned his eyes on Dean, looking as though he were seriously considering it. Was he seriously considering it? Dean shook his head, breathing 'no' in answer to his father's unasked question. He wouldn't leave. Even if he was given a choice, Dean had promised his father he'd stay. This was his fight as much as it was his dad's. Sam had made the choice to leave, but Dean would never do that, because he understood the importance of what they did.

"If they were my boys –"

"But they're _not_ yours." John swung his attention back to Bobby; his eyes growing dark with renewed anger. "When are you gonna get that through your head? They are not _your_ boys. You don't get to make decisions for them."

"No, that's your job, is that it? You ignorant fool. Does this look like a boy who can't make a decision for himself?" Bobby reached out and took Dean by the arm, pulling him back into the fray. John tensed up, but held his ground, much to Dean's relief. "He's a man, John. Same as Sam. Whose decision, by the way, had zero to do with me."

"Right. So you didn't have anything to do with it?"

"Nothin' more than a little encouragement. You gonna hold that against me?"

"You're damn straight I'm gonna hold that against you. I trusted you…with my kids, and this is what you do? You go behind my back and fill Sam's head with crap ideas about school, and then you lie about it. Straight to my face."

"First of all," Bobby defended, "I didn't put any ideas in Sam's head; they were already there. That boy's been college bound for years. And second, what's so wrong with him wanting something better for himself?"

"Better? How is this better? He's out there…alone! What if something happens? How am I gonna protect him if he's halfway across the country?"

John was back to pacing. Dean's eyes tracked him as he moved across the floor; John's heels striking the hardwood in one step and muted the next by the worn floral rug that lay in the middle of the room. He watched his father worry the left side of his jaw, where Sam had inadvertently hit him with his duffle in his escape. It had been the last 'touch' they'd shared, Dean realized. No handshake wishing Sam luck, no desperate hug to hold on to him, just Sam pushing his way out the door, swinging his duffle up onto his shoulder and smacking their dad with it in the process. That was some kind of goodbye.

"What do you think is gonna happen, John? He's not out hunting werewolves, he's going to school. The scariest thing he's gonna come across are the co-eds, and I'm pretty sure he's equipped to handle them."

Dean snickered quietly, but stopped quickly when John turned to glare first at him and then at Bobby. "Don't make this into a joke, Singer. I don't find this the least bit amusing."

"You know what I find amusing? The fact that each time something like this happens, you try and put the blame on someone besides yourself. Maybe if you just took a step back and really looked at the facts, you'd realize that you have no one but yourself to blame for your failed relationship with Sam."

"My relationship with my son is none of your business."

"Oh ho," Bobby chuckled humorlessly. He turned away, throwing his hands up in frustration and walked a slow circle around his end of the room; patrolling his territory like Rumsfeld did the front yard. He ran his hands over his face and turned his face up toward the raised ceiling, saying, "Twelve years, John. Twelve years ago, y'all showed up on my doorstep." When he turned around, Bobby looked tired, as if those twelve years weighed on him like bricks. "You came in and made yourself at home in my house – in my life – and yet, it's none of my business?"

"Didn't realize we were such a…an inconvenience in your busy, important life," John spat, throwing his arms out in a way that was so typically Sam, that Dean cringed at the sight of it.

"Oh shut up. You know that's not what I meant. I don't wanna go all chick flick on ya," Bobby said, casting a glance in Dean's direction, "but I care about you, you dumb sonuvabitch. You and these boys."

John rolled his eyes and turned away from the rest of the room, crossing his arms over his chest, which Dean recognized as his father's go-to response for dealing with things he didn't want to hear. He'd seen that broad back enough times in the past three or four years to know it well.

"I didn't want to," Bobby continued, trying to break into John's line of sight, "but I do. So tell me, what am I supposed to do? Turn it all off? Stop giving a shit? Cuz that's not possible."

"No. You're just not supposed to try and take my boys away from me."

"Take them away? Did you hit your head? I'm not tryin' to replace you, Jackass, but I'm sure as hell not gonna look the other direction when one of them needs my help."

"Help? You call this help? Sammy's gone. I'm never gonna see him again."

Dean danced nervously on the sidelines, avoiding Bobby's eyes when the older hunter frowned, first at him and then at his father. Bobby leaning his head back as if looking at John from a different angle might help make more sense of what he was hearing. "That's not how school works, you know? They have breaks; summer and Christmas and such.

"He's not comin' back."

"Why?"

The force of Bobby's voice was such that Dean couldn't deny it; couldn't look away. And this time when Bobby looked to him for an answer, Dean met his gaze; his eyes most likely giving everything away.

"What did you do?" Bobby asked, turning on John. Dean watched as the color drained from Bobby's face and his mouth fell open. "Did you kick him out?"

Dean saw that his dad looked surprisingly stricken; his normally sun-kissed complexion looking pallid beneath his untended beard growth.

"You don't know, Bobby." John's voice wavered ever so slightly, teetering somewhere between panic and anger. "You weren't there. There was no reasoning with him."

"It doesn't matter! Oh my God, what is wrong with you? How could you possibly try to reason someone _away_ from higher education?"

"He was running away…again. What was I supposed to do?"

"For crying out loud! You don't tell him he can't come back. I can't believe this." Bobby ran a hand over his face, scrubbing at his forehead and gritting his teeth. He muttered to himself, talking it out under his breath; words like 'Sam' and 'stubborn'. Dean tried to make out the random mutterings, but wasn't able to. Instead he tracked Bobby's movements across the floor, watching him become more agitated by the second, until finally Bobby nodded. It was a conclusion, if Dean ever saw one, but he was suddenly afraid to know what Bobby had been deciding.

"I want you out."

The statement was so definitive, that it caught John off guard. He went slack-jawed and frowned. "What?"

"Bobby…" Dean breathed. His first word in twenty minutes stole his voice and he clasped a hand over his mouth to cover the tremble hidden beneath.

"I'm sorry," Bobby directed to Dean, shaking his head sadly. "I know this is the last thing you need right now, but…" He couldn't finish the sentence, and Dean didn't need him to. Even if his father hadn't caught up yet, Dean was right there. He knew.

"Come on, Dad."

He crossed between them, taking his father by the arm and began pulling him from the room, but John shrugged out of Dean's grasp.

"You want _me_ out?"

"That's right," Bobby nodded, crossing his arms.

Dean tugged on John's arm again. "Let's just…go."

John pulled free and in the process, his arm connected beneath Dean's jaw, rattling his teeth and causing him to stumble back in shock. It was for that reason that Bobby found himself with a face full of John.

"You don't get to act all insulted and abused," John yelled, jabbing a finger into Bobby's sternum. He grabbed Bobby by the front of his shirt, fisting the material and bringing them nose to nose. "You betrayed _me_, Goddammit! Tried to steal my kids away! Always lookin' down your damned nose at the way I raised them and fightin' against me every chance you got."

Bobby fought against John's iron grip, landing a quick jab to John's mouth and nose. "Get off me. You've lost your mind."

"Knock it off!"

Finding his bearings, Dean fought his way between them, wrapping his arms around his father's middle and forcefully pushed John back to separate the two men. "I mean it. Stop!" Dean yelled at John. "You coming here was a mistake."

"You can say that again," John agreed. "Worst mistake I ever made. This is why you can't trust outsiders, Dean. Family don't stab you in the back when you least expect it."

"Dad, Bobby is our family," Dean insisted.

"He's not my family!" John roared. He knocked Dean sprawling and made to strike at Bobby, but was met by the business end of Bobby's 12-gauge.

"Lemme make this real simple for ya." Bobby hefted the gun to his shoulder and chambered a round with a quick push and pull of the fore-end. "You've got exactly five seconds to get your ass out of my house before I pump you so goddamn full of buckshot…"

"Bobby! Oh my God," Dean gasped, his breath rattling through his chest in shock.

"Dammit, Singer," John growled. "Put the gun down before you accidentally shoot me."

"Trust me, _when_ I shoot you…it won't be accidental."

John huffed, disagreeably. He ran his thumb across the corner of his mouth, wiping away the blood that dripped from his lip. "Just like I said: can't trust no one but family."

"Bobby," Dean pleaded. "Please."

"Dean, stay out of this," his father warned, not daring to move or take his eyes off the hunter – his friend – whose shotgun was most definitely threatening his life. John stepped into the weapon. He took ahold of the barrel and brought the muzzle to his sternum. "Come on," John challenged. "Do it. That was your plan all along, wasn't it? Get me out of the way."

"Oh my God!" Dean cried. "Will you shut up?!"

He wrapped a hand around his father's arm, tugging him back, putting much needed space between them and Bobby's weapon. "Stop giving him reasons to shoot you! You sound like a crazy person. You need to calm down, the both of you."

When Bobby lowered his weapon incrementally, Dean took the chance to turn and force his father back until John bumped into the desk behind them, and there he held him, trapping John and creating a protective barrier with his own body. With his father semi-secured, Dean looked to Bobby, hoping to find reason there.

"Bobby, please don't do this. I know he can be a hard ass. I know he screwed up. Dammit, look at me."

Bobby's eyes jumped to Dean's face, but only for a second before narrowing back on John.

"I know. Okay? He's not perfect, but he's my dad. I need him. I can't do this without him. Please, just…put the gun down. All the way down."

"I want you out," Bobby echoed his earlier statement, directing the command over Dean's shoulder at John. "You don't get to come into my house and make your mistakes my fault."

Dean felt John tense behind him again, and he renewed his efforts to keep his father safely behind him. Bobby wouldn't shoot as long as Dean stood in the way.

"The problems you have with Sam," Bobby continued, "are of your own creation and they're never gonna get fixed, cuz you're too damned stubborn to ever admit that all of this, everything that's happened, is because you're afraid."

Bobby lowered the gun to his side and Dean took that moment to turn and grab John by the arm, frog marching him out of the room, down the short hallway and out the door. He nudged John down the stairs, but stopped on the last step himself.

"Dean?" John turned concerned and hurt eyes on his son, and Dean knew without asking.

"Give me five minutes. You owe me that much," he choked out, struggling to breathe.

He turned and stomped inside – back into the house that had become a home away from…home – and climbed the stairs to his and Sam's shared bedroom. Grabbing his bag, he had to force himself not to look around the room. This wasn't goodbye. Right?

When he came down, Dean found Bobby waiting on the porch; his shotgun resting across one arm, guarding the house from John's re-admittance. Neither man was saying a word to the other.

Dean stepped out onto the porch, the screen door slapping behind him; a sound so familiar that it was almost as ingrained into the soundtrack of his life as the squeak of the Impala's doors. He took a deep breath, the scent of oil and gravel filling his nostrils, and he swallowed back the emotions that were beating their way up his chest.

Bobby reached out, blocking his path with a hand. "Dean, I –"

"Stop," Dean pleaded, turning red-rimmed eyes on Bobby and panting through trembling lips as he tried to regain control. "Just…just don't."

Bobby nodded, averting his eyes for Dean's sake.

Dean moved to step off of the porch, but once again Bobby put a hand out to stop him, wrapping warm fingers over the top of Dean's shoulder.

"Take care of him?" Bobby asked. Dean turned to look at the man he'd called Uncle; his father's best friend. "He's not gonna do it himself."

Dean dropped his duffle on the porch floor and swamped Bobby in a hug that seemed to last forever and said everything that Dean would never be able to say and John should have said a long time ago. And then just as quickly, he pushed himself clear of Bobby's arms. He snatched up his bag and descending the stairs quickly. John was waiting for him; leaned against the front fender of the Impala; arms crossed and looking heated. He pushed off of the car and started to speak, but was stopped with a glare. Dean jabbed his finger in his father's direction, ordering John to 'shut up and drive'.

Dean tossed his duffle into the passenger seat of the Impala and climbed in behind the wheel as John mounted his truck. Twin engines ignited, reverberating off the heaps of scrap metal in the salvage yard like thunder; like the first night, twelve years before. And Dean realized that Bobby was standing on the porch watching them drive out of his life the same way they'd come in.


	6. Epilogue

November 2006

There were a lot of things Bobby regretted in his life. Too many mistakes to mention and most of them too personal to talk about. But looking out the window and seeing Dean Winchester sitting on the top porch step, leaning his head into his hands, Bobby recognized that he could maybe still rectify one of his biggest regrets.

With two beers in his hand, he stepped out onto the porch. Dean stiffened immediately, but didn't rise up and run off like Bobby feared he might.

"That's quite a number you did on the trunk of your car," Bobby said, lowering himself down onto the step beside the younger man.

"Go away, Bobby. I don't wanna talk about it."

"I was just gonna say –"

"What is it with you and Sammy, huh? You both always gotta talk everything out. Can't even take me for my word when I say I'm fine. Gotta push my buttons. Not everyone has to air their feelings out. Some of us are just fine, stuffing things down and moving on. If you'd both just give me some damn space –"

"Hey," Bobby laid a hand over Dean's arm, stopping the man's runoff of the mouth. "All I was gonna say is, I know a guy we could probably get a trunk lid from. That's _all_ I was gonna say."

"Oh…sorry."

Bobby pulled the beer bottles around and handed one off to Dean, twisting the cap off as he did. Dean side-eyed the older hunter, and then shrugged, conceding and took a deep drink.

"Whatelse you think you're gonna need?"

"Time," Dean answered simply.

"Are we still talking about the car?"

Dean's head bobbed, a slight laugh escaping from upturned lips.

"I remember this one time," Bobby started slowly, checking Dean's reaction before he went on. "You couldn't have been but eleven years old maybe. Your dad and I had a job out near Rockford and we were on our way out there when you boys come down with some nasty strain of the stomach bug. Had it coming out of both ends, you poor things."

"I think I remember that. Sam lost it in the back seat and Dad nearly came unglued."

"Unglued, hell." Bobby threw his head back in a full body laugh that made Dean jump beside him. "He didn't come unglued, he nearly lost his lunch."

Dean frowned; the familiar line of concentration splitting his brows as he tried to remember back that far.

"I had you boys huddled up along the side of the road while your daddy was in the back seat, cleaning up the mess. At first, he was cussin' and fussin' about it. You know how he did; muttering to himself about stains and smells and the like, but then he went kinda quiet. So quiet in fact, that I had this funny feeling wash over me. So I stepped away from you boys and went to the passenger door and there's your dad…laughing."

"No way," Dean argued.

"God's honest," Bobby promised, placing his hand over his heart. "He was in there, wiping chucks off the seat; pineapple and pizza from some place in Madison we'd stopped for lunch, and he's laughing. Almost to the point of being hysterical, but every third laugh, he'd throw in a retch. Ha ha ha ugch. Ha ha ha ugch."

Bobby gagged; demonstrating a little too well, and Dean slapped the older man firmly and squarely in the back.

"Sorry. Gotta little carried away," Bobby said, regaining his composure.

"You're making this up," Dean accused.

"M'not. I promise you. I could not make this up. There were tears streaming down your daddy's face cuz he had a case of the giggles so bad on account of him trying hard _not_ to throw up. I stood there, hanging through the open window, shaking my head and completely confounded, and that's when the smell hit me too and _I_ gagged. Which only made him laugh harder. Your dad, he fell backwards trying to escape the smell. His foot musta slipped in some of it. So he ends up with one foot in and one foot out of the car. The problem was, the foot outside of the car was on loose gravel and the rock gave way and his boot slid underneath the Impala and your dad was trapped; hanging for dear life to the back door, half in, half out and no foot to stand on, laughing his ass off. I ain't never seen anything like it."

"Did you help him?"

"Hell no, I didn't help him. I was too busy laughing myself."

"Why don't I remember this? I mean, I remember being sick, but I don't remember all that."

Bobby faced Dean, turning in his spot on the top step, and laid a hand on the young man's shoulder, running his thumb in comforting circles.

"Because, son. We each remember the things in our life that were important to us. As screwed up as it sounds, that moment with me and your dad laughing and gagging over the smell of your little brother's sick…it stuck with me. That's who your dad was to me. He was a hunter, yes, and a tad bit obsessive, but he was a lot of other things too. We didn't always get along or agree on many things, but he was probably the best friend I ever had, or near to it."

The smile dropped away from Dean's face and he lowered his head to stare unseeing at the ground. "Why are you telling me this, Bobby?"

"Cuz I want you to know; want you both to know…" Bobby looked up toward the screen door, where Sam had secretly been listening. "That no matter how things played out all those years ago and despite what your old man said…we _are_ family. And that ain't never gonna change."


End file.
